Tag Archives: California

In April, a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the City of Berkeley’s ordinance prohibiting natural gas infrastructure in new buildings was preempted by federal law.  In June, Berkeley asked the Ninth Circuit for an en banc rehearing of the case.  The Biden administration submitted an amicus brief supporting Berkeley’s petition for a rehearing.  If a majority of the judges on the Ninth Circuit vote in favor of rehearing the case,… More

While the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) has been working on its climate disclosure rulemaking for the past 15 months, the California legislature may end up beating it to the punch.  The SEC first announced its proposed rulemaking to require certain businesses to include climate-related disclosures in their registration statements and periodic reports in March 2022, but the rulemaking process has been slow in light of strong resistance from various stakeholders.… More

This past year represents a real turning point in the transition to electric vehicles, demonstrated by new major incentives and regulatory activities at both federal and state government levels and several notable accomplishments in the private sector. First, the U.S. government approved EV Infrastructure Deployment Plans for all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico with an estimated $4.155 billion in funding going to states in the next five years to build out EV infrastructure.… More

Earlier today, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced provisional winners of its offshore wind energy lease sale for five areas on the Outer Continental Shelf off central and northern California. This auction represents the first offshore wind lease sale on the west coast and the first sale to support potential commercial scale floating offshore wind technology. Auction winners included some expected names and some new market entrants.

The 31-round auction,… More

One key challenge to tapping the full potential of energy storage systems to improve the function of the electric grid is the absence of obvious paths for the owner of storage resources to realize the revenue opportunities associated with all of the various services that such a resource could provide.  Energy storage resources can frequently provide multiple services – often crossing lines between categories of traditional resources that are compensated under different regulatory schemes. … More

California has been a national leader in promoting policies to support the deployment of energy storage resources.  The California Public Utility Commission’s directive that California utilities procure 1,325 MW of energy storage through biennial procurements has spurred significant excitement and economic activity as have capacity procurements that required a portion of need to be met with energy storage.  (The California Roadmap, … More

New, emerging, and expanding technologies offer opportunities to improve the reliability and performance of the electric grid, unlock efficiencies, and deliver valuable services to customers. Many state utility regulators (including those in Massachusetts, New York, and California) are investigating and implementing policies aimed at modernizing their electric grids to enable the provision of improved and expanded services. But to realize the full promise of new technologies,… More

I noted in July that emerging energy storage technologies have received increasing attention from policymakers as an essential element for improving the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid. Adequate storage is also seen as important for facilitating the integration of larger quantities of renewable generation. At that time I posited that the states would likely precede the federal government in advancing policies to encourage the development and adoption of storage technologies.… More