New England Offshore Wind Project Would Supply Energy to Mass. Public Power Utilities

October 19, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 19, 2021

Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid Renewables and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, on Oct. 13 announced that Vineyard Wind’s recent Commonwealth Wind proposal includes a first of its kind partnership with Energy New England (ENE) that will allow municipal light plants (MLPs) in Massachusetts to purchase offshore wind power.

Under the agreement, MLPs would be able to purchase up to 146,000 megawatt hours per year in addition to renewable energy credits (RECs), reducing carbon pollution by 300,000-400,000 tons over the lifetime of the contract, ENE said.

Commonwealth Wind will be able to deliver up to 1,200 megawatts of energy to Massachusetts.

The agreement will enable the MLPs, which currently provide 15% of the state’s energy baseload, to make meaningful progress toward meeting renewable energy targets, as required under Massachusetts’ new climate law, ENE noted.

The 20 Massachusetts MLPs able to participate in the Commonwealth Wind project, if successful, include:

• Belmont Municipal Light Department
• Braintree Electric Light Department,
• Chester Municipal Electric Light Department
• Concord Municipal Light Plant
• Danvers Electric Division
• Georgetown Municipal Light Department
• Groveland Municipal Light Department
• Hingham Municipal Lighting Plant
• Littleton Electric Light & Water Departments
• Mass Development/Devens Utility
• Merrimac Municipal Light Department
• Middleborough Gas & Electric Department
• Middleton Municipal Electric Department
• North Attleborough Electric Department
• Norwood Municipal Light Department
• Reading Municipal Light Department
• Rowley Municipal Lighting Plant
• Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant
• Wellesley Municipal Light Plant
• Westfield Gas & Electric Light Department

“As public power utilities continue to add non-emitting resources to their portfolios, it’s critical that they are able to join in on joint ventures such as the Vineyard Wind project,” said American Public Power Association President and CEO Joy Ditto. “This innovative partnership will enable the region’s not-for-profit, community-owned public power utilities to achieve local climate change goals as well as more diverse power generation portfolios.”

“This is a significant partnership between Vineyard Wind and ENE with its MLP clients, one that signifies the commitment that all the relevant parties have to the Commonwealth’s clean energy goals,” said John Tzimorangas, President and CEO of Energy New England, in a statement.

“The willingness of the MLPs to participate in this proposal and to continue their commitment to reducing emissions, as they have been doing, adds to their non-emitting portfolios. Working with the Vineyard Wind team, we’ve created a proposal that truly benefits the entire Commonwealth, bringing together private and public entities in an effort to provide the best proposal to Massachusetts in their latest solicitation for off-shore wind power,” he said.

Implementation of the plan is contingent on Commonwealth Wind being selected by the state in the most recent round of solicitation for offshore wind energy. 

Commonwealth Wind is a newly proposed offshore wind project submitted to Massachusetts’ third competitive offshore wind solicitation. 

If awarded, Commonwealth Wind will be developed in an area 22 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard that was designated by the federal government in 2015 following a multi-year stakeholder process.

ENE is a wholesale risk management and energy trading organization that serves the needs of public power utilities in the Northeast.

DOE Targets Five Million Households Powered by Community Solar By 2025

October 18, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 18, 2021

The Department of Energy (DOE) recently set a new target for its National Community Solar Partnership (NCSP) program.

The program’s new goal is to have community solar systems that can power the equivalent of five million households by 2025 and create $1 billion in energy bill savings on the way to reaching the White House’s goals of achieving 100 percent clean electricity by 2035 and ensuring that all Americans can benefit from renewable energy.

The new target represents more than a 700 percent increase in community solar installations, DOE said.

Achieving the $1 billion cost savings target would mean that, on average, community solar projects would provide a 20 percent savings on electric bills.

The DOE noted that the Sharing the Sun report, released by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in collaboration with NCSP, showed that community solar can lead to savings of electric bills ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent.

Even though there are enough solar panels installed to power 19 million households, the DOE noted that many Americans still lack access to affordable solar electricity, including renters, homeowners who lack affordable financing options, and those without suitable roof conditions.

According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, nearly 50 percent of households and businesses are not able to host rooftop solar systems.

Community solar projects are supported by membership subscriptions. Subscribers receive a portion of the revenue from the energy produced, typically as savings on their monthly electric bill.

The NCSP program is led by the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office in collaboration with the NREL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The partnership includes a coalition of community solar stakeholders, such as state, local and tribal governments, solar developers, and community-based organizations. As of September 2021, NCSP had over 650 members from over 440 partner organizations.

When the American Public Power Association joined the National Community Solar Partnership last fall, the program’s goal was to expand access to affordable community solar to every American household by 2025.

To achieve its new targets, the DOE is offering free, on-demand technical assistance to NCSP partnership members. NCSP has distributed $1 million for technical assistance and said it aims to provide $2 million in the next year.

Public Power Entities Encouraged To Participate In APPA Energy Transition Group

October 15, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
October 15, 2021

The American Public Power Association (APPA) is encouraging public power entities to participate in the Energy Transition Community (ETC), a working group that is addressing grid operations, reliability, resiliency and recovery in a future low emission electricity delivery system, including advising APPA’s work on its Department of Energy (DOE) cooperative agreements.

The ETC will include representatives from public power utilities, joint action agencies, and state/regional associations who inform program activities to provide technical understanding of how individual public power utilities can achieve low emission goals and continue to deliver safe, reliable, and cost-effective electricity to their communities.

“We want to hear from leading public power utilities on their achievements, strategies for success, and the challenges they have faced and overcome on their journey,” said Nathan Mitchell, Senior Director for Operations Programs at APPA. “At the same time, a key goal of the ETC is to hear from those who have not started on the journey to understand the barriers and possible knowledge gaps or challenges on integrating low emission resources,” he said.

DOE funds will help APPA enhance certain existing programs such as APPA’s Moving Public Power Forward strategic initiative.

The ETC is expected to enhance APPA’s Smart Energy Provider (SEP) program by identifying leading practices in a wide range of areas including community solar, storage, distributed energy resources, demand response and electric vehicles. Findings of initial research will be utilized to identify gaps for further research.

The SEP designation program has identified those with leading practices in these areas.

The SEP applicants “will give us a forum of nearly 100 industry leaders who are on the leading edge with successful programs,” Mitchell said.

The SEP program is a best practices designation for utilities that show commitment to and proficiency in energy efficiency, distributed generation, renewable energy, and environmental initiatives. Additional information about the SEP program is available here.

Under a recently unveiled cooperative agreement with DOE, APPA will bring together public power utilities to facilitate discussion, evaluate opportunities, and define barriers to integrating energy storage technologies with power plants. APPA will also work with DOE and other stakeholders to mitigate these barriers. DOE will provide $100,000 per year for five years, while APPA will provide $25,000 of in-kind cost share per year for five years, for a total value of $625,000.

APPA is actively looking for members to join the ETC. Specifically, APPA is looking for subject matter experts from public power who work on low emission resource integration, resilience and customer side supply.

In terms of time commitment, full participants will be expected to devote approximately four to six hours per month for meeting and guidance review. Observers will be expected to commit to approximately two hours per month for awareness and some meetings.

To volunteer to participate in the ETC, send an email to: EnergyTransition@publicpower.org.

TVA Adds Another Solar Project To Its Green Invest program

October 6, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 6, 2021

Danish energy company Ørsted has completed a 227-megawatt (MW) solar project in Alabama for the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

The Muscle Shoals photovoltaic solar project in Colbert County has a long-term power purchase agreement with TVA. The project will support the sustainability goals of Facebook’s data center in Huntsville, Alabama that just started operations.

TVA’s Green Invest program is available to businesses and local power companies in TVA’s territory.

In May, TVA announced a new Green Invest partnership with Facebook and RWE Renewables that will build a 150-MW solar facility near Millington, Tenn. Facebook will use 110 MW of the solar energy to support their data center operations in Gallatin, Tenn., and the broader Tennessee Valley.

In January 2020, TVA announced a partnership with Nashville Electric Service and Vanderbilt University for a 35-MW solar project in Bedford County, Tennessee. In March 2020, TVA entered into a deal to secure 212 MW of solar power for Knoxville Utilities Board’s customers.

Since 2018, TVA’s Green Invest program has attracted nearly $2.7 billion in solar investment and procured over 2,100 MW of solar power on behalf of its customers.

Since 2005, TVA says it has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 63 percent. With a variety of initiatives, including long-term customer partnerships for Green Invest projects, the utility hopes to reduce its emissions to 70 percent by 2030, 80 percent by 2035, and to achieve net-zero emission generation by 2050.

DEED Scholars Contribute to Public Power’s Knowledge Base

October 5, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
October 5, 2021

Three engineering students have filed reports detailing the results of scholarships they were awarded through the American Public Power Association’s Demonstration of Energy & Efficiency Developments (DEED) program.

From Arizona, Colorado, and Michigan, these impressive women are a sampling of those being exposed to careers in public power and provided mentoring opportunities as a result of their DEED scholarships.  

The reports expand the knowledge base available to public power utilities on subjects that range from the analysis of photovoltaic (PV) solar installation output models and modeling public power electricity rates to analyzing upcoming capacity markets and understanding public perceptions on solar water heaters.

Giuliana Seretti/Fort Collins Utilities

The DEED program funded a research project by Giuliana Seretti, an electrical engineering student at Colorado State University. Her research sponsor was John Phelan, energy services manager at Fort Collins Utilities.

Seretti’s research project, PV Solar Modeling and Analysis, compared the accuracy of three PV solar output models – the Sector model, a linear regression model, and a new machine learning model – by comparing them with PVSTEM model, developed by researchers at Colorado State University (CSU).

The results of the research were intended for utilities “to predict the amount of solar power that could be produced in the future (days to weeks). This helps with successfully managing the distributed energy resources. It also gives utilities a better understanding of when each model is best applicable,” said Seretti.

“The PVSTEM model was used as a baseline because testing had shown its results to be very close to actual measured solar production,” Seretti said in her paper.

The PVSTEM model was developed using weather data from CSU’s main campus, as well as specific orientation and configuration information about each individual solar array.

Seretti’s research showed that the Sector model has the closest accuracy to the PVSTEM model. In addition, it has a fast run time and can handle large datasets.

The PVSTEM model takes about 11 minutes to run 1,787 PV solar systems. The sector model takes about 2.8 seconds to run the same number of systems. The error accuracy of the Sector model compared with PVSTEM is around 1.3 percent.

Seretti found that the regression model’s accuracy compared with PVSTEM is about 4.95 percent because it is less accurate in the summer and winter because there is no temperature or wind speed adjustment. However, the regression model has a high accuracy in the fall and spring. The linear regression model can also handle any amount of data points without increasing the run time, the paper showed.

It takes about two-and-a-half minutes to train the machine learning model, and the model has a strong correlation between actual solar production and predicted production, Seretti’s research found.

In conclusion, there was not a best model, Seretti found. Each model had its own strengths and weaknesses, each also had specific applicability and were better suited for different situations.

With these various tools, energy utilities will be able to manage Distribution Energy Resources (DER) on a real time basis as well as modeling historical generation patterns,” Seretti said.

Seretti said, “The results of her research will help utilities select a model that best suits their needs. If utilities want to predict and plan for future solar production, the best model would be the machine learning, as it takes in multiple parameters in a data set and predicts the solar output.”

The PVSTEM model had the highest accuracy compared to the actual solar production, making it a good base for comparing the other models, according to the research paper. However, when given a large set of systems, the PVSTEM model had a significantly longer run time than the other models.

The Sector model can handle large data sets and produce the total solar production with a short run time, making it useful when more solar systems are installed and need to be added to overall solar production calculations in real time, the paper found.

The regression model shows the different relationships between each of the parameters used for calculating solar production, making it useful for showing the relationships between each of the parameters, according to Seretti.

Hanna Gehrke/ Michigan Public Power Agency

Hanna Gehrke, a mechanical engineering student at Michigan State University, won a DEED scholarship to be the energy market operations intern at the Michigan Public Power Agency (MPPA) under the sponsorship of MPPA’s Brent Taylor and the supervision of Taylor and Keith Parrott.

Under the internship, Gehrke had four main tasks: data verification, creation of reports within the agency’s business intelligence software, analyzing and illustrating energy rate differences between MPPA member rates and the rates of investor-owned utility Consumers Energy, and sorting and filtering data from the generation interconnection queue for the Midcontinent Independent System Operator (MISO) and Michigan.

Among the benefits of working on several, well developed tasks were the ability “to learn and experiment with many different topics within the power industry,” Gehrke said in a report on the DEED scholarship.

Gehrke said working on established projects afforded her more opportunities to learn from colleagues and see how the utility’s processes were developed and gave her a clear foundation on which to build. “Sometimes having a good foundation to base knowledge off can be more beneficial than having to learn as you go,” Gehrke said.

On the data verification project, Gehrke checked if data from Open Access Technology International (OATI) was flowing into Microsoft SQL, a program for holding and managing data. She found discrepancies in some of the data fields and was able to search for the sources of the errors, enabling a supervisor to correct the errors.

In another project, Gehrke created 17 reports and standardized the format of most reports, shortening the time that viewers need to understand the material and enabling a non-subject matter expert  to use the information to suit their needs.

In the third project, Gehrke used MPPA’s business model risk assessment software to create a model that allows MPPA member utilities to see Consumers Energy’s predicted rates and compare them with what they are currently paying for the different rate classes.

Feeding historical data into the model, Gehrke was able to project rate comparisons and display them in a “speedometer” graphic that gives MPPA member utilities “a visual representation of how much each rate class was saving in comparison to Consumers.”

“When members see they are getting lower rates than Consumers Energy, they will continue to secure power through MPPA,” Gehrke said via email. “This allows MPPA to grow and maintain relationships with its members.”

For her final project, Gehrke sorted and filtered data from Michigan and MISO’s generation interconnection queue and, using that data, determined how many projects were completed and how many were withdrawn from the queue per year.

The ability to see the success rate of projects can help a utility better forecast future capacity prices. “If it is forecasted that not enough generation will come online, then MPPA will be able to investigate purchasing more capacity or building it rather than buying from the market for elevated prices,” Gehrke said.

Other companies could also take inspiration from the analysis of the MISO generation interconnection queue, Gehrke said. “Having a rough estimate of expected new generation, the utility will be able to make better informed resource planning decisions,” she said.

Naushita Sharma/Salt River Project

Naushita Sharma was awarded a DEED student research grant in 2018 when she was a graduate research assistant at the School of Sustainable Engineering & the Built Environment at Arizona State University. Her report was recently published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 320, 20 October 2021. She is now working as a water and wastewater engineer at Jacobs Engineering Group. Sharma’s mentor and sponsor was Jerald “Chico” Hunter, manager of environmental policy and innovation at Salt River Project.

Sharma’s research focused on customer acceptance and installation of solar water heaters (SWH) and the need for public education.

While solar water heaters are a mature technology with high household adoption rates in countries such as China, Turkey and Israel, their deployment in the United States is limited, representing only 2 percent of global SWH installations, Sharma noted.

Nonetheless, the energy used to heat water represents a substantial portion of U.S. energy use by the residential sector. The paper, Public perceptions towards adoption of residential Solar Water Heaters in USA: A case study of Phoenicians in Arizona, noted that residential energy use accounts for about 22 percent of all the energy consumed in the U.S. with space and water heating accounting for 60 percent of that total. In all, residential water heating systems (WHS) account for roughly 19 percent of total residential energy consumption, and many of those systems are fueled by natural gas.

The goal of Sharma’s paper was to understand public perceptions towards solar water heaters in Phoenix, Ariz. Her analysis was based on a consumer survey of 315 households that explored the relation of demographics, group influence, and competing technologies on the public awareness and acceptance of solar water heaters.

The study found that 57 percent of respondents were willing to use solar water heaters while about 20 percent were hesitant or unwilling to use them. The remainder were unsure about their choices. Many of the respondents, 76 percent, favored the need for information on cost and energy requirements and about 61 percent wanted more information on how solar water heaters fared against conventional water heating technologies.

“The main conclusions of the paper were policy related,” Sharma said. Public perceptions on solar water heaters are favorable in Phoenix, particularly among households with higher income and education levels, according to the report. But it is also evident that penetration of rooftop PV assisted electricity generation has exceeded niche thermal solar water heaters.

In addition, Arizona has significant solar potential, but constant use of solar water heaters requires the right amount of solar irradiation and at a particular angle, which might not be accessible to all the households in Phoenix, thereby limiting their popularity, according to the report.

Therefore, Sharma recommended that Arizona and the rest of the U.S. should expand residential and utility-scale solar PV installations to decarbonize the residential sector and place less dependence on solar thermal technologies such as solar water heaters. She emphasized a wider approach that maximizes the use of PV solar technologies and incentives. “Solar water heating is only one application, while rooftop solar can be used for electricity, water or space heating,” Sharma said.

For additional information about DEED, click here.

NYPA Selects Developer for Solar Arrays To Supply To Empire State Plaza

September 29, 2021

by Vanessa Nikolic
APPA News
September 29, 2021

New York State’s Office of General Services (OGS) and the New York Power Authority (NYPA) recently selected a developer for several remote solar arrays that will help power the Empire State Plaza, a complex of several state government buildings in downtown Albany. 

The solar arrays, which will be located in central New York’s Oneida County, are part of an extensive energy efficiency plan for the Empire State Plaza. The plaza plans to follow the state’s goal of reaching 100% renewable energy by 2040. 

OGS and NYPA have selected DG Development & Acquisitions, an Albany-based subsidiary of NextEra—a leader in wind and solar energy production—to develop more than 30 megawatts of solar generation near the former Oneida County Airport in Oriskany, with the power benefiting the plaza in Albany. 

Officials said the land near the former airport was selected due to its size of about 1,100 acres. 

NYPA president and CEO Gil Quiniones said the project is a key component of OGS’ and NYPA’s plan to improve reliability and sustainability at the plaza. 

“The development of this massive solar project in Oriskany will be the largest concentration of distributed-scale solar generation in New York State, providing a significant benefit to the state and the Empire State Plaza in Albany,” Quiniones said. 

In 2019, NYPA and OGS completed a thorough evaluation of energy options for the Empire State Plaza. The two entities worked together to conduct a series of technical reviews, several community listening sessions, and meetings with neighborhood associations. 

The solar array development is currently in the design phase. The installation of the arrays is expected to begin in 2022 and end in 2023. 

In addition, more than $16 million in LED lighting fixtures will be installed throughout the complex to reduce energy use.

OGS and NYPA have additional plans to conduct a comprehensive energy audit of the plaza to determine what further projects need to be taken into consideration, and continue to align operations with the state’s long-term environmental goals. 

San Francisco Public Utilities Commission Seeks Renewable Energy Supplies

September 29, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 29, 2021

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is accepting bids for renewable energy supplies that will serve low-income CleanPowerSF customers in San Francisco.

Through a request for offers (RFO), the SFPUC is looking to purchase energy and associated capacity from new renewable energy resources located within the state’s disadvantaged communities (DACs).

These resources will serve two recently announced electricity discount programs that will be offered to eligible CleanPowerSF customers: the CleanPowerSF Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariff and the CleanPowerSF Community Solar Green Tariff.

The CleanPowerSF Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariff program is expected to begin serving customers in early 2022 with renewable energy from an already operating interim resource.

CleanPowerSF plans to transition participating customers to renewable energy produced by a new project located in Northern California as a result of the solicitation.

Eligible customers must live in a state-determined DAC in CleanPowerSF’s service area and must be low-income.

CleanPowerSF expects to serve approximately 1,200 customer accounts through the CleanPowerSF Disadvantaged Communities Green Tariff.

The CleanPowerSF Community Solar program will begin to serve customers by mid-decade. Eligible projects must be solar resources and located in a DAC that is within five miles of subscribing customers.

To be eligible to subscribe, customers must live in a DAC. At least 50 percent of the project’s capacity must be subscribed to by low-income customers, while the remaining 50 percent will be open to all DAC residents.

CleanPowerSF expects to serve about 350 customer accounts with the CleanPowerSF Community Solar Green Tariff program.

More information about the RFO is available at: www.cleanpowersf.org/energyvendors.

CleanPowerSF is a not-for-profit program of the SFPUC. California law allows cities and counties like San Francisco to pool the electricity demand of their residents and businesses, and purchase electricity on behalf of those customers. These programs are called community choice aggregation programs.

CleanPowerSF began serving customers in May 2016, giving residential and commercial electricity consumers in San Francisco the option to have more of their electricity supplied from renewable sources at competitive rates.

Salt River Project Unveils Plans For 400-MW Solar Plant

September 28, 2021

by Peter Maloney
APPA News
September 28, 2021

Arizona public power utility Salt River Project (SRP) has announced its largest standalone solar power project to date, a 400-megawatt (MW) facility scheduled to enter operation in 2024.

The CO Bar Solar project is sited on private land in Coconino County, Ariz. Clenara, a subsidiary of Enlight Renewable Energy, is contracted to build and operate the new solar plant. Construction is expected to begin in 2023 and to generate about 550 jobs, many of them local.

The project is the latest in a string of recent announcements aimed at supporting the public power utility’s long-term decarbonization goals.

In May, SRP said it would more than double its 2025 utility-scale solar commitment, raising the goal to 2,025 MW of utility-scale solar power that would be online by the end of fiscal year 2025.

In August, SRP announced three new solar energy plants capable of generating a total of 500 MW. The three projects include two 200-MW solar plants and a 100-MW solar facility. The first project is due online in fall 2022 and the other two will begin construction in 2022. Facebook has agreed to take 450 MW of the output of the projects.

With its commitment to add 2,025 MW of utility-scale solar resources by 2025 and its recent announcement of new solar projects, SRP anticipates that nearly 50 percent of the retail energy it delivers to customers will come from carbon-free resources by 2025, contributing to the utility’s goals to reduce carbon intensity by 65 percent in 2035 and by 90 percent in 2050 from 2005 levels.

SRP is also exploring the use of energy storage to help integrate intermittent solar resources into its grid with the recent announcement of a 25 MW battery storage facility at its Bolster substation as well as deals for solar-and-storage facilities scheduled to come online in June 2023.

LIPA’s Board Approves PPA For 36-Megawatt Solar Farm

September 28, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 28, 2021

The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) Board of Trustees on Sept. 22 approved a new power purchase agreement (PPA) for a 36-megawatt (MW) solar farm in Calverton, New York.

Once complete, this project will be the largest solar project on Long Island and among the largest throughout the state.

In 2015, LIPA and its service provider, PSEG Long Island, issued a request for proposals for new, renewable capacity and energy to expand LIPA’s portfolio of renewable energy resources.

In 2017, LIPA selected two solar farms for development — the 22.9 MW Riverhead Solar 1 with LI Solar Generation, LLC, which is currently under construction, and the 36 MW solar facility, which will be developed by a limited liability company owned by the AES Corporation and the Alberta Investment Management Company. 

Riverhead Solar 2 will be adjacent to the existing Riverhead Solar 1 facility in Calverton. Both projects will be interconnected with the LIPA Edwards Avenue Substation. Since the project is larger than 25 MW, it underwent an extensive environmental review before approval by the LIPA Board and has met all applicable requirements.

LIPA will purchase all the capacity, energy, and renewable attributes produced by the project for 20 years and the commercial operation date is planned for June 1, 2023. The contract includes an option for LIPA to extend the term for an additional 10 years at a discounted price.

“Riverhead Solar 2 demonstrates the LIPA Board’s commitment to clean energy for Long Island and the Rockaways,” said LIPA CEO Tom Falcone in a statement. “Over the next five years, thousands of megawatts of new, clean energy projects will be connected to our local electric grid.”

California Governor Signs Offshore Wind Legislation Into Law

September 27, 2021

by Paul Ciampoli
APPA News Director
September 27, 2021

California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed into law a bill that directs state agencies to develop a strategic plan for offshore wind resources in California.

Newsom on Sept. 23 signed into law AB 525 by Assemblymember David Chiu.

Under the new law, the California Energy Commission (CEC) has until June 1, 2022, to evaluate and quantify the maximum feasible capacity of offshore wind “to achieve reliability, ratepayer, employment, and decarbonization benefits and shall establish megawatt offshore wind planning goals for 2030 and 2045.”

The law also calls for the CEC, in coordination with the California Coastal Commission, Department of Fish and Wildlife, Ocean Protection Council, and State Lands Commission, to work with stakeholders, other state, local, and federal agencies, and the offshore wind energy industry to identify suitable sea space for wind energy areas in federal waters sufficient to accommodate the offshore wind planning goals.

In May 2021, the Biden administration, in conjunction with Newsom, announced an agreement identifying regions off the California coast that could support the administration’s goal of deploying 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind energy by 2030.

According to a recent report, California has enough offshore wind power potential to meet 157% of the state’s 2019 electricity use.