The Energy News Digest for December 2, 2020

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HOT SHOTS – TODAY’S TOP FIVE STORIES

Power Cuts Begin in California as Winds Threaten to Spark Fires (Bloomberg News)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/power-cuts-begin-in-california-as-winds.html

Bonneville Power Administration Proposes Flat Rates Ahead (KIFI-TV, Idaho Falls, ID)

https://localnews8.com/news/local-news/2020/12/01/bonneville-power-proposes-flat-rates-ahead/

California: San Jose Adopts Historic Natural Gas Ban, with a Controversial Exemption – Joins San Francisco, Berkeley & Now Oakland With Similar Bans (San Jose Mercury News, CA)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/california-san-jose-adopts-historic.html

Skookumchuck Wind Facility in Washington is Operational (Chinook Observer, Long Beach, WA)

https://www.chinookobserver.com/news/state/skookumchuck-wind-facility-in-washington-is-operational/article_12efd8a9-1f5f-5d67-a709-a7efe84f5cc7.html

New Energy Northwest Solar Project Planned for 300 Acres Near Richland (Wenatchee World, WA)

https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/business/new-solar-project-planned-for-300-acres-near-richland/article_1f4488a7-6bc7-5cef-85f5-f345fdcd2503.html

NEWS HIGHLIGHTS (See Stories Below)

1.        Power Cuts Begin in California as Winds Threaten to Spark Fires

2.        Bonneville Power Administration Proposes Flat Rates Ahead

3.        WA State: Malden Residents Await Federal Aid 3 Months After Wildfire

4.        Wyden-Merkley Bill Aims to Ensure More Wildfire-Resistant Power Grid

5.        Scientists Say Washington State Wildfire Management Must Go Beyond Forests

6.        Cowlitz PUD Warns Customers of Scam

7.        Okanogan PUD Proposes Alternative Rate Structure

8.        British Columbia: BC Hydro Makes Further Rate Cut for 2020-21, Customers Get Credit on Bill Next Year

9.        Canada: Peace River Dam Budget Sure to Soar

10.     San Francisco Public Utilities Chief Charged with Corruption

11.     Thomas D. Elias: Time to Think Seriously About Breaking Up California Utilities

12.     High-Voltage Power Lines Are Ugly, and the U.S. Needs More

13.     Canadian Hydropower: Marblehead Among 19 Massachusetts Utilities to Sign Hydroelectric Power Deal

14.     Issue Brief: Protecting 6 GHz Spectrum Usage by Public Power from Interference

15.     Department of Energy Announces 2020 U.S. Clean Energy Education & Empowerment Awardees – Bozeman, MT Gets Recognition

16.     New Zealand: Shockingly Stupid Thefts Risk Life, Endanger Public, for Pittance Powerline Payoff

17.     Skookumchuck Wind Facility in Washington is Operational

18.     New Energy Northwest Solar Project Planned for 300 Acres Near Richland

19.     Wind Power off the Oregon Coast Could Provide More than Electricity

20.     Livermore Development Fight Isn’t Over Suburban Sprawl, But Rather a Big Solar Farm

21.     Biggest U.S. Solar Manufacturer Wants to Keep Trump’s Tariffs

22.     Tualatin Firm Powin Powers Up in the Energy Storage Race

23.     Report: Illinois Utility Fails to Deliver on Smart Meter Benefits

24.     Study Looks at Impact of Ocean & Dams on Salmon Runs

25.     New Model Predicts That Larger Fish Suffer Respiratory Distress Sooner

26.     When Orcas Attacked Sailboats Off Coast of Spain, They May Have Been Reacting to Harpoon Attacks

27.     Feds List Key Subalpine Whitebark Pine Species as Threatened

28.     California: San Jose Adopts Historic Natural Gas Ban, with a Controversial Exemption – Joins San Francisco, Berkeley & Now Oakland With Similar Bans

29.     Oregon: Local Youth Advocate Against Natural Gas Usage Locally, Abroad

30.     Many U.S. Electric Utilities Plan Slow Decarbonization Over Next Decade, Out of Sync with Biden Plan

31.     Op/Ed: A Strategic Natural-Carbon Reserve to Fight Climate Change

32.     Idaho Invests Big in Broadband During Pandemic

33.     Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Ends, Results Expected Soon

34.     States Prioritized Broadband as COVID-19 Took Hold

35.     How Much Broadband Speed Do Americans Need?

36.     Slack Sold to Business Software Giant for $27.7 Billion

37.     Portland General Electric, Daimler Team Up to Build Charging Hub for Electric Trucks in Portland

38.     U.S. Senate Approves Two Energy Regulators, Completing Panel

WORD OF THE DAY

Estoppel • \ess-TOP-pull\ • Noun – A legal bar to alleging or denying a fact because of one’s own previous actions or words to the contrary

The oily-mannered politician’s estoppel was admirable and maddening to citizens at his town hall meeting. “While I’d love to change my position on that topic,” he oozed, “I must hold true to my previous statements for now.”

ENERGY & UTILITY ISSUES

1.      Power Cuts Begin in California as Winds Threaten to Spark Fires (Bloomberg News)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/power-cuts-begin-in-california-as-winds.html

2.      Bonneville Power Administration Proposes Flat Rates Ahead (KIFI-TV, Idaho Falls, ID)

https://localnews8.com/news/local-news/2020/12/01/bonneville-power-proposes-flat-rates-ahead/

3.      WA State: Malden Residents Await Federal Aid 3 Months After Wildfire (Associated Press)

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2020-12-01/malden-residents-await-federal-aid-3-months-after-wildfire

4.      Wyden-Merkley Bill Aims to Ensure More Wildfire-Resistant Power Grid (KTVZ-TV, Bend, OR)

https://ktvz.com/news/fire-alert/2020/12/01/wyden-merkley-bill-aims-to-ensure-more-wildfire-resistant-power-grid/

5.      Scientists Say Washington State Wildfire Management Must Go Beyond Forests (Crosscut Seattle, WA)

https://crosscut.com/environment/2020/12/scientists-say-wa-wildfire-management-must-go-beyond-forests

6.      Cowlitz PUD Warns Customers of Scam (Longview Daily News, WA)

https://tdn.com/news/cowlitz-pud-warns-customers-of-scam/article_315de40e-5042-56ec-b6b8-c25d5c844e34.html

7.      Okanogan PUD Proposes Alternative Rate Structure (Quad City Herald, Brewster, WA)

https://www.qcherald.com/public-utility-dist/okanogan-pud-proposes-alternative-rate-structure

8.      British Columbia: BC Hydro Makes Further Rate Cut for 2020-21, Customers Get Credit on Bill Next Year (Victoria Times-Colonist, BC)

https://www.timescolonist.com/bc-hydro-makes-further-rate-cut-for-2020-21-customers-get-credit-on-bill-next-year-1.24248817

9.      Canada: Peace River Dam Budget Sure to Soar (Alaska Highway News)

https://www.alaskahighwaynews.ca/site-c/site-c-budget-sure-to-soar-1.24247674

10.   San Francisco Public Utilities Chief Charged with Corruption (Associated Press)

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2020-11-30/san-francisco-public-utilities-chief-charged-with-corruption

11.   Thomas D. Elias: Time to Think Seriously About Breaking Up California Utilities (Napa Valley Register, CA)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/thomas-d-elias-time-to-think-seriously.html

12.   High-Voltage Power Lines Are Ugly, and the U.S. Needs More (Bloomberg News)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-30/high-voltage-power-lines-are-ugly-and-the-u-s-needs-more

13.   Canadian Hydropower: Marblehead Among 19 Massachusetts Utilities to Sign Hydroelectric Power Deal (Salem News, MA)

https://www.salemnews.com/news/local_news/marblehead-among-19-mass-utilities-to-sign-hydroelectric-power-deal/article_be014856-507f-5dff-b763-1645e99cfea7.html

14.   Issue Brief: Protecting 6 GHz Spectrum Usage by Public Power from Interference (American Public Power Association)

https://www.publicpower.org/policy/protecting-6-ghz-spectrum-usage-public-power-interference

15.   Department of Energy Announces 2020 U.S. Clean Energy Education & Empowerment Awardees – Bozeman, MT Gets Recognition (U.S. Department of Energy)

https://www.energy.gov/articles/department-energy-announces-2020-us-clean-energy-education-empowerment-awardees

16.   New Zealand: Shockingly Stupid Thefts Risk Life, Endanger Public, for Pittance Powerline Payoff (Stuff – NZ)

https://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/300168973/shockingly-stupid-thefts-risk-life-endanger-public-for-pittance-powerline-payoff

RENEWABLE ENERGY & SELF STORAGE

17.   Skookumchuck Wind Facility in Washington is Operational (Chinook Observer, Long Beach, WA)

https://www.chinookobserver.com/news/state/skookumchuck-wind-facility-in-washington-is-operational/article_12efd8a9-1f5f-5d67-a709-a7efe84f5cc7.html

18.   New Energy Northwest Solar Project Planned for 300 Acres Near Richland (Wenatchee World, WA)

https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/business/new-solar-project-planned-for-300-acres-near-richland/article_1f4488a7-6bc7-5cef-85f5-f345fdcd2503.html

19.   Wind Power off the Oregon Coast Could Provide More than Electricity (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

https://www.pnnl.gov/news-media/wind-power-oregon-coast-could-provide-more-electricity

20.   Livermore Development Fight Isn’t Over Suburban Sprawl, But Rather a Big Solar Farm (San Francisco Chronicle, CA)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/j.html

21.   Biggest U.S. Solar Manufacturer Wants to Keep Trump’s Tariffs (Bloomberg News)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-12-01/biggest-u-s-solar-manufacturer-wants-to-keep-trump-s-tariffs

22.   Tualatin Firm Powin Powers Up in the Energy Storage Race (Portland Business Journal, OR)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/tualatin-firm-powin-powers-up-in-energy.html

CONSERVATION & EFFICIENCY

23.   Report: Illinois Utility Fails to Deliver on Smart Meter Benefits (Energy News Network)

https://energynews.us/2020/12/01/midwest/report-illinois-customers-have-not-benefited-from-smart-meters/

FISH & WILDLIFE

24.   Study Looks at Impact of Ocean & Dams on Salmon Runs (Associated Press)

https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/dec/01/study-looks-at-impact-of-ocean-and-dams-on-salmon-/

25.   New Model Predicts That Larger Fish Suffer Respiratory Distress Sooner (Phys.Org)

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-larger-fish-respiratory-distress-sooner.html

26.   When Orcas Attacked Sailboats Off Coast of Spain, They May Have Been Reacting to Harpoon Attacks (Daily Kos)

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/11/30/1999113/-When-orcas-attacked-sailboats-off-coast-of-Spain-they-may-have-been-reacting-to-harpoon-attacks

ENVIRONMENTAL AFFLATUS – CLEAN UP ON AISLE THREE

27.   Feds List Key Subalpine Whitebark Pine Species as Threatened (Courthouse News Service)

https://www.courthousenews.com/feds-list-key-subalpine-pine-species-as-threatened/

CLIMATE CHANGE SEQUESTRATION VAULT

28.   California: San Jose Adopts Historic Natural Gas Ban, with a Controversial Exemption – Joins San Francisco, Berkeley & Now Oakland With Similar Bans (San Jose Mercury News, CA)

https://energynewsdigest.blogspot.com/2020/12/california-san-jose-adopts-historic.html

29.   Oregon: Local Youth Advocate Against Natural Gas Usage Locally, Abroad (KLCC Radio, Eugene, OR)

https://www.klcc.org/post/local-youth-advocate-against-natural-gas-usage-locally-abroad

30.   Many U.S. Electric Utilities Plan Slow Decarbonization Over Next Decade, Out of Sync with Biden Plan (Energy & Policy Institute)

https://www.energyandpolicy.org/utilities-carbon-goal-biden-climate-plan/

31.   Op/Ed: A Strategic Natural-Carbon Reserve to Fight Climate Change (Seattle Times, WA – Paywall Advisory)

https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/a-strategic-natural-carbon-reserve-to-fight-climate-change/

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

32.   Idaho Invests Big in Broadband During Pandemic (Boise State Public Radio)

https://www.boisestatepublicradio.org/post/idaho-invests-big-broadband-during-pandemic#stream/0

33.   Rural Digital Opportunity Fund Auction Ends, Results Expected Soon (Telecompetitor)

https://www.telecompetitor.com/rdof-auction-ends-results-expected-soon/

34.   States Prioritized Broadband as COVID-19 Took Hold (Government Technology)

https://www.govtech.com/network/States-Prioritized-Broadband-as-COVID-19-Took-Hold.html

35.   How Much Broadband Speed Do Americans Need? (The PEW Charitable Trusts)

https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2020/11/30/how-much-broadband-speed-do-americans-need

THE WIZARDING WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY

36.   Slack Sold to Business Software Giant for $27.7 Billion (British Broadcasting Corporation)

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-55154326

I SING THE CAR ELECTRIC

37.   Portland General Electric, Daimler Team Up to Build Charging Hub for Electric Trucks in Portland (Oregon Public Broadcasting)

https://www.opb.org/article/2020/12/01/portland-oregon-electric-truck-charging-stations-daimler/

GOVERNANCE & MANAGEMENT

38.   U.S. Senate Approves Two Energy Regulators, Completing Panel (The Hill, Washington, DC)

https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/528072-senate-approves-two-energy-regulators-completing-panel

ALLIGATORS IN THE SEWER – DIVERSIONS

This Guitar Sat in a B.C. Family’s Closet for Years. It’s Now Worth as Much as $26,000

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/kamloops-guitar-1.5823288?cmp=rss

Arrest Made in Real Life Christmas Tree Grinch Theft Case

https://www.khq.com/news/arrest-made-in-real-life-christmas-tree-grinch-theft-case/article_36d491be-34ba-11eb-a78f-cf6851071116.html

How a Mysterious Utah Monolith Vanished Overnight (It Wasn’t Aliens)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/01/arts/design/utah-monolith-removed-instagram.html

‘Sovereign Citizens’ Claiming Waterfront Homes in Woodway, Edmonds

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/sovereign-citizens-claiming-waterfront-homes-woodway-edmonds/6L7YQR6OAJCUNPHQTNO6XQI5XE/

SONG OF THE DAY

Bread – Guitar Man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fYUpVAb34I

LINKS & PAYWALL ADVISORY

Links in the news digest lead to current stories. Media organizations update their websites regularly, which may result in broken links. Possible Paywall restrictions are noted in the media attribution.

Tualatin Firm Powin Powers Up In The Energy Storage Race (Portland Business Journal, OR)

(PORTLAND, OR) - - It was a pivot when mainly glib tech entrepreneurs running out of money were using the word — long before Covid-19 made it omnipresent in business.

Four years ago, Powin Corp., a quarter-century-old Tualatin contract manufacturer and maker of an endless range of consumer and industrial products, became Powin Energy Corp., a utility-scale battery energy storage company.

It worked out well. Powin etched a place among the industry’s leaders, catching a wave of increasing demand as utilities and other grid players turned to big battery installations that can help make room for more intermittent renewable energy.

Now Powin — still something of an upstart among well-heeled competitors — is focused on extending its ride, grabbing what it can of a domestic market expected to grow from $1.5 billion this year to $7 billion by 2025, according to the U.S. Energy Storage Association and Wood Mackenzie.

To do it, Powin has invested heavily in its technology with a big staff buildout. And the company is bent on continuing to use its Asia expertise to source battery cells at the best price.

“We caught lightning in a bottle and now other competitors are moving,” Geoff Brown, Powin’s president since 2016, said. “They’re taking our approach or finding their own ways to reach a similar pricing floor. And so what we do is use that momentum that we had in 2018 and 2019, double down on additional R&D, double down on additional technology investment, and double down on improvement in our product.”

The approach

Powin wasn't starting from nothing when it dove headlong into energy storage in 2016. By then, a vaguely focused subsidiary called Powin Renewable Energy Resources Inc. had begun to turn heads with a patented product that exquisitely balanced the output of the small battery cells that are the foundation of a big energy storage system.

With it, Powin offered a holistic, less expensive approach in a nascent sector populated by integrators.

“They would buy from someone who had built a module or from somebody else who does a bunch of cells,” Brown said. “And then they would have to buy an enclosure that had been built by somebody else. And then they'd have experienced engineers writing software to bring it all together. It was all very bespoke. There was a lot of margin stacking with that approach.”

Powin, by contrast, bought just the battery cells that are strung together into modules that are strung together into packs that go into shipping-container-like enclosures. Most cells are made in China, where the former Powin Corp. had a long history of sourcing.

“We bought the battery cell, then took it all the way to the finish, including the software and pairing that with long-term service, pairing that with real deep technical expertise and some differentiated approaches to building the system,” Brown said. “That allowed us, really from day one, to be one of the lowest-cost providers.”

This wasn't penetration pricing; the company won contracts “at profitable gross margins,” Brown said.

Growing fast

Powin had revenue in 2019 of $32 million, nearly three times what the old Powin did in 2015, its last largely pre-energy-storage year. Sales could triple this year and then again in 2021, Brown said.

Key Capture Energy has done three projects in Texas with Powin totaling about 30 megawatts. Three more, much bigger — totaling 200 megawatts — are on their way next year. They're part of a Powin project pipeline that will be 10 times as fat in 2021 as it was in 2019, Senior Vice President Danny Lu said.

“The Powin solution, cost and value structure make them very appealing to the energy storage industry,” Jeff Bishop, Key Capture Energy’s CEO, said via email. Bishop called out Powin’s roots and its “great relationships up and down the Asian and American supply chains,” and noted that it is “aggressively filling their team with experienced folks from all over the energy sector, bringing a diversity of experiences.”

Since March, Powin has hired 65 people in the U.S., about two-thirds locally, Lu said. Most are engineers. It’s what’s needed to keep pace with the industry’s heavyweights, including an AES and Siemens joint venture called Fluence, and Tesla, which needs no elaboration except to say Elon Musk believes that in the long run, energy storage will be just as big as electric cars to the company.

Utility-scale storage costs fell 70 percent from 2015 to 2018, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, and the pressure to keep pushing prices lower isn’t letting up.

“Over the last four years, we’ve evolved our product no less than five full times,” Brown said. “We’ve done that because it’s a necessity. We have to keep doing that. The perfect battery has not been built yet, and we want to be the ones to do so.”

POWIN ENERGY

WHAT IT DOES: Manufacturers and deploys utility-scale battery energy storage systems

EMPLOYEES: 178 total, 102 in U.S.

LEADERSHIP: Joseph Lu, CEO; Geoff Brown, president

BASED: Tualatin

2010

Powin Corp. launches a subsidiary to focus on offering manufacturing services to the renewable energy industry.

2012

The company does an energy storage demonstration project, using technology developed by Virgil Beaston, now its CTO, with the Bonneville Power Administration.

2014

Investment from Chinese firm SF Suntech helps the company commercialize its battery management system.

2016

Powin hires Geoff Brown as president and ditches the Powin Corp. moniker to focus wholly on energy storage as Powin Energy Corp.

2017

The company completes its first major commercial project in record time as Southern California Edison rushes to boost peaking capacity after a natural gas storage facility leak.

2018

Powin, public since 2010, goes private as it begins to win more and more storage project contracts.

Livermore Development Fight Isn’t Over Suburban Sprawl, But Rather A Big Solar Farm (San Francisco Chronicle, CA)

J.K. Dineen Nov. 30, 2020 Updated: Nov. 30, 2020 4 a.m.

The fight over the development of 400 acres of dry grazing fields in North Livermore Valley has all the hallmarks of a classic California land use battle.
Opponents say the project would gobble up protected agricultural land, decimate the valley’s rural character, and threaten important native species like the California tiger salamander and the burrowing owl. Project supporters counter that it would bring good union jobs, millions of dollars in investment and is a good public use for a piece of private land that is mostly used for grazing cattle and harvesting hay.

But what sets the Livermore Valley conflict apart is that the proposal isn’t for a sprawling office park or a vast housing subdivision. Rather the developer is a renewable energy company looking to construct the Bay Area’s largest solar farm and battery power storage facility, something it says is instrumental to meeting regional climate goals.

Last week, the East County Board of Zoning Adjustments approved the Aramis Solar Energy Generation and Storage Project, which would transform 410 acres of grassland — the size of 300 football fields — into a sea of 267,000 solar panels. The solar development, west of North Livermore Avenue at May School Road, would generate 100 megawatts, enough to power about 25,000 homes and businesses.

The 2-0 vote to approve the project, which came after seven hours of public comment, will be appealed to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, said attorney Rob Selna, who is representing a group of ranchers and environmental groups opposed to the project.

The project has divided environmentalists, with some supporting it as infrastructure necessary to meet the state’s clean power goals and others arguing that it would harm the natural environment and ruin North Livermore Valley’s rural character. And with California committed to producing 100% zero-carbon electricity by 2045, the sort of fight being played out in Livermore will likely could become more common, Selna said.
“The story illustrates a dynamic that the state will be confronted with going forward in trying to increase renewables,” Selna said. “To get utility-scale solar development you need undeveloped land. There will be increased conflict and increased clashes between renewable energy developers, and protecting and preserving natural environments.”

The core of the opponent’s argument is that the project violates both Measure D, the 1980 “Save Agriculture and Open Space Lands Initiative,” as well as the county’s general plan, which designates the stretch of North Livermore Avenue a “Scenic Rural-Recreation Route.”

Alameda County Measure D allows wind farms, like the one on Altamont Pass, but doesn’t specifically allow solar installations. County planning staff contends that two previous solar projects, one in 2008 in Mountain House and one along the Altamont Pass in 2011, established precedent allowing solar installations.

At the hearing, Livermore resident John Burke said the project would violate the will of the voters. “Twenty years ago, we voted that we didn’t want this place to be built over,” he said “We like our open space. We would like it to stay this way.”
In an interview, Chris O’Brien, who owns about 50 acres abutting the site, said that he moved to North Livermore in 2000 largely because of the assurance that Measure D would protect the valley from development. While he has cattle and horses on his property, he said he regularly sees spotted owls, salamanders, bald eagles, Peregrine falcons, bobcats, deer, coyotes and foxes on his land.

“It’s really a wildlife preserve, in a sense,” he said. “It’s the last valley in the Bay Area that is not developed with housing. And that is because of Measure D.”
If the project is built, O’Brien would be able to see the solar panels from his living room.

“It’s going to destroy the view from our house,” he said. “We are all for clean energy, we are all for union jobs — the question is, is this the right place? There are a lot of reasons to say it’s not.”

The developer, Intersect Power, dismissed the concerns as unfounded. Marisa Mitchell, a principal with the company, called the development “critical Bay Area infrastructure” that will “offset the need to run the natural gas-fired power plant in Hayward.

She said the farmland being sacrificed is of neither local nor statewide importance. And calling the land “open space” is misleading, she said, as it is not currently accessible to the public.

Her company, in contrast, proposes opening some of the property to the public by creating a public hiking trail along Cayetano Creek and dedicating an easement to the county or the Livermore Area Recreation and Park District.

A planted vegetation buffer, with native wildflowers, would separate the solar facility from North Livermore and Manning roads. Mitchell said “expert biologists” hired by her company found no evidence of endangered species, including the California tiger salamander. Karen Swaim, a biologist who opposes the development, disputed this claim, saying the property is close to multiple salamander breeding ponds. She said the developer surveyed the wrong location at the wrong time of year.

The project has the strong backing of construction unions, which have signed a labor agreement with Intersect Power. Livermore resident David Nelson of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, said that beyond the 400 jobs and $22 million in investment the project would generate, recent wildfire seasons have demonstrated the desperate need for combating climate change with clean power.

“This valley has been filled with smoke more times than I can count,” he said. “It’s time we did our part.”

But some Livermore residents object to the fact that much of the power generated would not go to the East Bay but rather San Francisco. That’s because CleanPowerSF, a renewable energy aggregator administered by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, has entered into a contract to purchase 75% of the energy generated. The Livermore City Council has also voted to oppose the project.

Livermore veterinarian Larry Gosselin said during the planning hearing that the project seems designed to “help the city of San Francisco meet its green energy obligations.”

“San Francisco is getting the benefits of green power production while it creates a burden on the landowners and residents of Alameda County,” he said.

Critics also took issue with the fact that the project is being approved before the county completes a long-awaited study of where large solar development should be located.

But several proponents of the project countered during the meeting that the Bay Area has to shoulder some of the solar infrastructure burden.

“It can’t just be in the Central Valley or somewhere in the desert,” resident Tim Mason said. “It needs to be in the local areas, including Alameda County. We need to have local clean energy.”

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @sfjkdineen

Thomas D. Elias: Time To Think Seriously About Breaking Up California Utilities (Napa Valley Register, CA)

The most annoying part of living in the myriad potential wildfire areas around California lately has been a series of public safety power shutdowns imposed by companies like Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

The stoppages, sometimes lasting as long as three days, are plain acknowledgments from the companies that their equipment and their maintenance practices are unsafe, inadequate to protect individuals from harm and possible death. This renders service provided by the companies unreliable.

Yet, no one seriously threatens the survival or monopolies of these companies, which admit they’ve killed upwards of 100 persons over the last three years, while not one of their executives has served a single minute in jail for their destructive decisions.

The bulk of the admitted deaths came in the 2018 Camp Fire which incinerated the city of Paradise in Butte County. PG&E pleaded guilty this year to manslaughter charges for 85 deaths. There could have been more such guilty pleas in other places, but no district attorney outside Butte County has brought criminal charges against any of the utilities or their executives.

Yes, there have been penalties. Most famously, PG&E went through bankruptcy and paid billions of dollars in cash and stock to a trust representing many of its victims. The company’s board of directors was cashiered and replaced. But some top executives escaped with gold parachutes worth millions of dollars to go along with their guilty consciences.

Now come two further authoritative condemnations of the companies, especially PG&E. In one, the ratepayer advocacy division of the state Public Utilities Commission recommended fining the company $167 million for its poor communication with customers about impending shutdowns aimed at preventing new fires.

Said one division lawyer, “When a utility fails to provide hospitals, fire departments and people with medical conditions with adequate warning of its decision to execute a shutoff, it is endangering lives.”

This doesn’t appear to bother PG&E, according to the Chicago-based law firm monitoring the company’s legally required attempts to make power lines and transformers safer. The monitor’s report noted that PG&E’s safety effort has been worse in 2020 than before.

“The monitor team has not seen a meaningful improvement in the quality of work (on vegetation trimming),” said the report from the Kirkland & Ellis law firm. “On a per-mile basis, (we are) finding more missed trees in 2020 than (in) 2019.”

So PG&E is not only failing to tell key customers far enough in advance when power cutoffs are coming, but it also has not notably increased safety, despite all its at-fault fires of the last four years.

There is no such monitor for Edison or SDG&E, but Edison admitted its power lines likely caused two large October blazes in Orange County.

All of which leads some to believe it’s high time Gov. Gavin Newsom activates a law known as SB 350, which he signed June 30, authorizing the state to take over and/or force the selloff of parts of utility companies failing to discharge their duties.

These companies have done precisely that. They cut off power when it suits them. They do not compensate victims of those shutoffs, customers sometimes paying for electricity they never get.

So far, Newsom does not take seriously the notion of breaking up any utility, even PG&E. When this question arose during an October news conference, Newsom claimed PSPS notifications are improved. “It’s a different day,” he said. “But we do have the ability to take (PG&E) over. We now have oversight and safety committees.”

He did not respond to the questions of why utilities should be allowed to keep deciding how and when to warn customers and when to do shutoffs. Nor did he respond to one customer who complained that “Every time I pay my electric bill, I feel like I’m helping a murderer.”

Others are ready and waiting to take over parts of PG&E. The many relatively new publicly-owned community choice aggregation outfits around the state, for example, would love to take over power lines they now must rent.

It’s time Newsom took this seriously. If he does not, he can expect his inaction to be used against him when he seeks reelection in 2022.

 

Power Cuts Begin in California as Winds Threaten to Spark Fires (Bloomberg News)

Power shutoffs that could ultimately affect more than 1 million people in Southern California began Wednesday morning as high winds raised the risk of live wires sparking wildfires.

Edison International’s Southern California Edison cut electricity to 849 homes and businesses in Los Angeles and Ventura counties as of 9:15 a.m. local time, according to its website. The utility warned it could shut power to more than 271,000 customer accounts in eight counties, or about 813,000 people based on the size of the average household. That would constitute the region’s largest public-safety blackout this year.

Dry winds strong enough to knock down power lines are forecast to rattle Southern California through Thursday, exposing more than 6.4 million people to critical fire weather, according to the National Weather Service and the U.S. Storm Prediction Center.

“If fires do start they will have a pretty dangerous spread,” said Marc Chenard, a senior branch forecaster at the center. The danger isn’t just the immediate conditions, but the prolonged dryness that has plagued the area and turned trees, grasses and shrubs into fuel. Red flag fire warnings are posted in and around Los Angeles County as the threat grows.

California has already been charred by record fires that have burned 4.2 million acres and killed 31 people in 2020. Utilities including Edison and PG&E Corp. have cut power repeatedly to prevent live wires from falling into dry brush.

Sempra Energy’s San Diego Gas & Electric utility also warned that 88,700 homes and businesses, or more than 260,000 people, could lose power Wednesday night or Thursday morning, and possibly remain in the dark through Sunday or Monday. Most affected customers would be in the mountains east of San Diego. PG&E, California’s largest utility, said it may cut power to about 600 homes and businesses in Kern County this week, as well.

Last week, Edison cut power to thousands of customers on Thanksgiving during high winds. In 2019, PG&E filed for bankruptcy after its wires sparked the deadliest blaze in state history.

The high winds and blackouts will be mostly confined to Southern California but could touch a portion of the state’s Central Valley as well.

California: San Jose Adopts Historic Natural Gas Ban, With A Controversial Exemption – Joins San Francisco, Berkeley And Now Oakland With Similar Bans (San Jose Mercury News, CA)

(SAN JOSE, CA) - - San Jose made history this week by becoming the largest U.S. city to ban natural gas from nearly all new construction, looking to all-electric infrastructure as the city’s latest tool to combat climate change.

But a controversial exemption that allows certain facilities to continue operating on fossil fuels has some environmental advocates concerned that San Jose will set a bad example for other cities that might want to follow in its footsteps.

The San Jose City Council voted 8-3 Tuesday night to prohibit natural gas in new commercial and high-rise residential buildings beginning in August 2021. Councilmembers Raul Peralez, Magdalena Carrasco and Pam Foley dissented, siding with environmental advocates who opposed an exemption added at the eleventh hour.

“I am confident that we are taking a huge step here that is going to get us much, much closer to our climate goals,” Mayor Sam Liccardo said during Tuesday’s virtual council meeting.

That same night, the Oakland City Council also voted unanimously to ban natural gas in newly constructed apartment and commercial buildings. San Jose and Oakland join more than three dozen cities with similar all-electric building mandates, including the Bay Area’s San Francisco, Menlo Park, and Berkeley, which was the first city in the country to enact such a regulation last year.

San Jose’s move Tuesday night expanded upon a city ordinance that went into effect in January barring natural gas in new single-family homes, detached granny flats and low-rise multifamily buildings up to three stories.

Although natural gas is more environmentally friendly than other fossil fuels such as coal, the energy source is now seen by many as a poor substitute for electricity. Removing natural gas from nearly all new buildings in San Jose will decrease greenhouse gas emissions and improve both indoor and outdoor air quality, according to San Jose’s chief sustainability officer, Kerrie Romanow.

The city’s newly-expanded natural gas ban does not apply to existing homes or commercial buildings. Hospitals and new dwelling units attached to an existing home will be exempt, and food-service establishments and manufacturing facilities facing financial difficulties can apply for “limited hardship exemptions” through the end of 2022.

The particular exemption that drew backlash from dozens of San Jose residents, students and environmental advocates dealt with facilities that generate and store energy on-site. Under the expanded ordinance, those facilities would not have to solely rely on electric energy until Dec. 31, 2024.

The exemption was added just one day before the council was expected to take up the proposed ban earlier this month, forcing a delay on the vote for two weeks. It was prompted by alarms raised at the last minute by Bloom Energy, a publicly-traded fuel cell company based in San Jose that sued over a similar ban in Santa Clara earlier this year. Liccarrdo’s friend and former Silicon Valley Leadership Group CEO Carl Guardino now serves as executive vice president of the company.

Bloom’s fuel cells can provide critical backup power during power outages such as PG&E’s power safety shutoffs that left hundreds of thousands of Bay Area residents without power this fall. In a letter to the city, Guardino argued that intermittent renewable resources must be paired with reliable generation such as the Bloom boxes to “keep the lights on and business running.”

The issue for environmentalists, though, is that the fuel cells generate electricity using mainly natural gas, run at all hours of the day — not just during power outages — and emit more than three times as much carbon dioxide as power from the city’s utility, San Jose Clean Energy, according to city and Bloom figures.

Olivia Walker of the Natural Resources Defense Council called the exemption for companies like Bloom an “unnecessary and counterproductive” loophole that would allow “unfettered use of fuel cells powered by fracked gas.”

“This continuous use of gas-powered fuel cells would compromise the local and global benefits of San Jose’s increasingly clean fuel mix and even create demand for a new fossil gas infrastructure,” Walker said during the virtual meeting.

Linda Hutchins-Knowles of Mothers Out Front Silicon Valley echoed that sentiment, saying Bloom’s fuel cells “undermine our ability to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals” and could potentially lead other cities to follow the city’s misguided path. Hutchins-Knowles urged the city to pass the natural gas ban without the exemption until it could more deeply research and understand the effects of allowing companies like Bloom to bypass the regulation.

Still, the majority of council members sided with Mayor Liccardo, who argued that guaranteeing companies have an uninterrupted supply of energy despite the region’s unreliable power grid was essential.

“We’re pushing folks toward an electric grid that is not reliable and not dependable,” the mayor said. “We hope all that changes in the years ahead, but PG&E is many years and tens of billions of dollars away from fixing its problems.”

Romanow, the city’s chief sustainability officer who proposed the parameters of the time-limited exemption, said she saw it as a concession to allow “a little bit more natural gas than we’d honestly prefer” in order to increase density and development in San Jose, therefore providing “economic prospectively to all our community through job creation and getting people out of their vehicles.”