Scaling Solar in California, at The Commonwealth Club
Jan 12, 2010

************Notes taken during the panel session ************
Climate One has a podcast.

Renewables are at 13 to 14 % this year, but were supposed to be 20% by now.

Financing, Transmission, Government-Speed (lack thereof) all held it back.

ESolar announced a 2000 Mw facility in Mongolia. They will deploy that faster than in CA.

PGE, at 14% renewables now. Contracted for over 20% by 2013.

All levels of govt need to work together to make this happen.

90% of solar are on the rooftop. Solar on ground, $3per watt. 15-20 cent Kwh range.

Land use: 1-20 Megawatts is a mid range facility. Need 150 central plants. There are no technology barriers.

3000 Mw rooftop goal by 2017.
Mostly a landuse and regulatory challenge. We're more cautious now.

PGE: not just one technology. Large part is thermal. 20-30 mw PV. 250 mw by contract. Cannot bet on just one tech.

PGE: distributed power as a majority of Kwh's is far out in the future. Centralized is pref in short term.

Only some of the central plants will ever be built. 9 to 1 wind over solar. Big installations, many resource barriers. More than most.

Natural resource defence council, READY report. Analyzed many options to help move this through. Many environmental groups resist. They even fight each other. Local Sierra clubs resist regional club.
We even sign the agreements and still nothing happens. We need constant pressure. BLM needs to be engaged to get access to the land and they are slow.

PGE: if this is considered a public priority, we need oversight to ensure progress. Governor has been a leader on this. Focused on projects that could get stimulus funds that have govt in the way and prioritize the effort on them.

Dirt must be turned by the end of the year to get funds. We got a lot done with govt prioritization.

We need a lead agency in CA. Much of govt is designed to go slow. This provides time to fight it. We need to prioritize projects thru govt to make them happen

Financing is avail, but not for those that lose $. The bureaucracy needs to come down.

Meaningful price: change the cost of fossil fuel energy. There will probably be a switch to natural gas as an interim solution.

Federal influence required? Much of the cost issue is scale.
RPS: renewable portfolio standard.
PGE: need fed support. Very powerful. Needed to have a federal system to make that happen.

The PV mfg center has moved to China. We lost that. CA even has added a salestax to mfg equip that lowers incentive.

Jobs. PUC: PV mfg jobs here will (?). Opportunity for entire supply chain here.

50 to 1 difference of local economy impact when invested in non-fossil fuel projects. 700k job potential.

Smart grid.
Renewables into the grid before it's a problem? Wind is not coincident with demand, need storage. Southern Edison resells extra renewable energy at night very cheap. Not ideal.

CA rates are higher than elsewhere, but climate is warmer. Total bill is typically lower. Heat spikes push the rates higher. Tiered rates implemented. 18m smart meters to be implemented. PGE another 3M.

PGE: energy efficiency is still needed. Power of information.

Storage,
Natural gas could buffer the variability in the meanwhile, so storage should not be the limiter.

PUC: CA has already done a lot of carbon sequestration research. Instead of sending the poor oil to the mid east to burn, much carbon can be removed prior to distribution. We have the IP here.

Storage is not required in thje short term. Water pumping is the easiest. Battery tech is far from ready for the grid.

China recognizes the serious problem. There is a sense of urgency amongst the young. Their govt is helping them. They shut down factories in bad air times, not air conditioners. Different drivers there. 10X qty of new engineers than here. We need to work cooperatively with them.

Nuclear.
PUC: CA has not allowed any new nuclear, and limited expansion. 1GW plant is several B$. hard to finance. 2 nuke plants. We will not see new ones for a while.
PGE: realize the CA nuke limitations. The existing plants are critical to keeping our emissions in check.