California Energy Commission moves to add generation sought by governor

The California Energy Commission has approved two orders to comply with Governor Gavin Newsom's emergency proclamation to reduce strain on the energy infrastructure and to ensure increased clean energy capacity due to projected shortfalls of 3.5 GW in 2021 and 5 GW in summer 2022.

One of the two orders, both approved during an Aug. 17 commission meeting, focuses on new emergency and temporary generators, while the other focuses on changes in design, operations or performance of existing facilities. Both orders are in response to the governor's July 20 emergency proclamation declaring a state of emergency due to extreme drought, wildfires and record-breaking heat events.

"A few megawatts can make a significant difference to our reliability," Commissioner Siva Gunda said about the importance of the order.

The governor's proclamation directs the CEC to work with the state's load serving entities "to accelerate plans for the construction, procurement and rapid deployment of new clean energy and storage projects to mitigate the risk of capacity shortages and increase the availability of carbon-free energy at all times of day."

New emergency, temporary generation

The first order the commission approved creates a process to expedite licenses for new emergency or temporary power generators of 10 MW or more to deliver net peak energy by Oct. 31. Generators must meet certain criteria for licensing, which will be for up to five years. The commission's executive director will decide on licenses within 10 days with no appeal process.

The governor's proclamation states the Department of Water Resources and the CEC shall enter into contracts to arrange for the procurement of materials, goods and services necessary for projects likely to be online by Oct. 31, that would expand energy supply and storage to respond to energy supply shortages caused by climate change.

Th two agencies have assessed more than 40 sites and are in process to procure five 30-MW stations, while working to identify additional generation, said Ted Craddock, deputy director of the DWR State Water Project. The five 30-MW sites currently use natural gas, but are capable of blending up to 75% hydrogen in the future, depending on the availability of hydrogen.

Changes in exiting sites

The other order creates a process to expedite post-certification petitions for changes in power plant project design, operation and performance, including geothermal generation and integrating solar generation and battery storage with appurtenant facilities on an existing site. The commission's executive director will decide on petitions within 10 days with no appeal process.

The governor's proclamation states the CEC shall establish a process to expedite all post-certification petitions for changes in power plant project design, operation and performance. It also suspends statutes and regulations the CEC determines should be granted and would reduce the energy shortfall by Oct. 31, 2021.

"Gov. Newsom's emergency proclamation makes it very clear that all of our agencies have to work immediately," Commissioner Karen Douglas said.

2020 outages

Extreme heat waves in 2020 strained electric operations in California and led to the first rotating outages since 2001.

A final root cause analysis of the 2020 outages was released in January 2021.

The commission, along with the California Independent System Operator and the California Public Utilities Commission, took actions to provide greater grid reliability for summer 2021, including emergency procurements and increased coordination among balancing authorities in the state.