California’s Next Frontier: Clean Electricity for Everything
By David Hochschild and Mark Ferron
Last winter, Californians witnessed the single worst accidental release of greenhouse gas emissions in American history when the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility in Los Angeles County sprung a leak. Over the course of nearly four months, 5.4 billion cubic feet of natural gas spewed into the atmosphere, equivalent to the greenhouse gas pollution produced by more than 500,000 cars for a year. The Aliso Canyon leak raises questions about the long-term future for natural gas in California.
Given the threats posed by methane, which is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, and the aging and fragile key infrastructure like Aliso Canyon, what place should natural gas have in our energy future?
Californians can take pride that our state is the pace car in the race to a clean energy future. We get more than 25 percent of our electricity from renewable energy. The largest wind, solar and geothermal energy projects in the world are in California. Today, the largest manufacturing facility in the state makes electric vehicles.
With Gov. Jerry Brown’s leadership, new legislation will reduce greenhouse gas emissions further by ensuring we get 50 percent of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030.
But now the time has come to take the next step and convert to clean electricity almost everything that is today powered by polluting fossil fuels. We should pursue this goal of electrification with as much vigor as we have invested in advancing clean energy.
We must map out, in a strategic and thoughtful way, a path to electrify almost everything from transportation to heating to industrial equipment and then transition our electricity portfolio to 100 percent renewables.
The good news is that the transition to electricity is under way. California has 200,000 electric vehicles on the road, more than any other state in the nation. In October, the first mainstream fully electric vehicle with a 200-mile range, the Chevy Bolt EV, will come to market at a price of $25,000, after federal and state incentives. Next year, Tesla will follow suit with its Model 3.
Battery-powered electric buses, too, are hitting the streets courtesy of companies like Proterra and BYD. High-speed rail, now under construction, will connect Northern and Southern California with trains powered entirely by renewable electricity.
Electrification can also reduce costs. California home builders such as City Ventures and KB Homes have begun building homes without gas lines, where gas central heating, hot water and stoves are replaced by electric appliances. By avoiding the need to install gas pipelines under the streets and inside homes, these forward-thinking builders are able to reduce the price of the home by $4,500.
Driving an electric vehicle saves money, too. Electric vehicles cost half as much per mile to drive as those powered by gasoline or diesel.
The benefits of electrification extend to the operation of the electric grid as well, where a virtuous cycle is created in which it becomes easier to manage electricity demand the more of the economy converts to electricity. For example, electric vehicle charging can be optimized to align with the times during the day when renewable energy generation is greatest. In this way, electrifying transportation and buildings creates a natural shock absorber to soak up and smooth out the intermittency of renewable electricity supply.
Such a transformation from fossil fuel dependency to electricity powered by renewables is not going to happen overnight. It will require California to pursue a “silver buckshot” rather than a “silver bullet” approach in which we begin to make full use of clean energy generation, invest in energy storage, electric vehicle charging infrastructure, and smart technology to control energy demand.
Electric technologies from cars to trains to appliances are of a higher quality than ever before, and the cost of wind and solar power has declined by almost 60 percent since 2010. Meanwhile, in part due to the natural gas disasters at Aliso Canyon and San Bruno, the retail price of natural gas is expected to rise. PG&E plans to increase gas rates for customers by 11 percent next year and rate increases for gas customers around the state are likely as well.
The time has come to begin the next chapter in our journey, accelerate innovation and build a clean energy infrastructure that meets the challenge of our times. It’s time for California to plug in to the future.
David Hochschild is a commissioner at the California Energy Commission, the state’s primary energy policy and planning agency. Mark Ferron is a member of the Board of Governors of the California Independent System Operator, which manages California’s high-voltage electricity grid.
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This commentary was originally published in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 20, 2016.
