Very good news in California for renewable energy....

Today's post: Wednesday, 10-14-2009

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Further, it’s extremely clear that the most supported and economically beneficial solution to add energy that does not use oil nor burn fossil fuels to release more CO2 into air that already has too much is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy production, particularly those that generate electricity & to dramatically increase energy efficiency and reduce the amount of energy that is now wasted.

And, of those the more important long range solution is to build massive amounts of new renewable energy generation.

There are two ways that have been proven to help do this.

One is to pay the going rate for renewable energy fed into the grid even from small generators.

The other is to use the same kind of Feed-in tariff that guarantees builders of larger renewable energy generation projects that Germany used so successfully that makes it profitable AND FINANCABLE up front for builders to build the renewable energy generation production projects they will build. The contracts that give them a modest profit and guaranteed income over the life of the contracts are the key to this.

The state of California just took two key steps in the right direction.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed two key bills Sunday, 10-11, 2009 that will boost solar power. Since I live in California & also know that what we do here is often copied elsewhere, I’m extremely pleased and encouraged.

Here are the two key bills he signed.:

1. AB920, requires the utilities to pay a homeowner whose solar array or small wind generator produces more electricity during the year than the customer uses. Until now, if a homeowner's panels produced more energy than the home used in an entire year, the utilities got the excess for free.

For people with larger homes with room for a lot of solar cells this may make installing solar cells much more affordable since they will get some income in return in some cases. It will also make installing a large enough system to come close to powering the home by itself even in less sunny weather, since they will get paid for the excess they generate in sunny weather.

It may even cause the building of micro-projects to generate renewable energy by guaranteeing the electricity they generate is marketable.

(I’ve not yet read the bill to see if such installations or a similar deal for businesses is included as well as the one reported for homeowners. One report I saw suggests it might but I do not yet know.)

If we need more renewable energy, & we very much do need it and soon, this policy has made such good sense, I’ve wanted this done for quite some time. So it’s great news that it has been made California law – or will be the day it takes effect it will be.

2. SB32, will expand California's feed-in tariff for renewable power. Used widely in Europe, feed-in tariffs establish a price the utilities pay to buy electricity from businesses with solar arrays.

California already has a feed-in tariff, but it only covers renewable power projects capable of generating 1.5 megawatts or less. Under SB32, the limit is increased to 3 megawatts.

This is much smaller progress since the existing program is quite a bit less than the German model that is proven to work so well.

But, since it is on a much bigger scale than paying those homeowners who manage to produce more electricity from renewables than they consume—and because even if partial it’s a step in the right direction and now can boost projects twice as large, it is still modest but important progress.

When ALL projects from tiny to much larger than 3 megawatts can get a feed-in tariff contract as good as the Germans used, I’ll be happier and we will get a lot more renewable energy built.

That said, in California, we now are headed there more than we were before.

And, it’s news of progress that will begin to help.