The use of once-through cooling (OTC) has been phased out at three more power plants since 2016, according to a tracking progress report from the California Energy Commission.

OTC has been eliminated at 10 power plants equating to 10,400 megawatts (MW). OTC power plants with 6,300 MW of capacity is expected to retire by 2020 and the remaining 3,800 MW by 2029. Renewable energy will replace the lost energy capacity from retired power plants.

OTC technology in power plants diverts marine water to cool the steam after passing through a turbine to create power, destroying and dislocating billions of aquatic organisms and habitats in the process. In 2010, the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) began a phase out process at 19 OTC power plants to address state coastal and estuarine waters damages.

The California Independent System Operator, Energy Commission, and California Public Utilities Commission works with the SWRCB to implement the OTC policy to improve water quality and ensure electricity grid reliability. The policy is aimed at the intake of marine water or using operational/structural controls to reduce organisms and objects being trapped in the screens.

Many of the OTC power plants are critical for local energy reliability, which is why the Statewide Advisory Committee on Cooling Water Intake Structures works with SWRCB to maintain grid reliability while implementing the policy.

That means that compliance dates may need to be changed. The SWRCB approved deferring the compliance date for the Encina Power Plant Units 2 to 5 to December 31, 2018. The one-year extension for those units, which were retired December 11, 2018, was needed because of delays in the completion of its replacement project, the Carlsbad Energy Center.

Nuclear power plants also are phasing out OTC. In 2012, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station shut down because it would have been more costly to repair steam generator tube leaks. The Diablo Canyon Power Plant’s nuclear regulatory license ends in 2024 at Unit 1 and 2025 at Unit 2, but the compliance date for both units is December 31, 2024. Pacific Gas &Electric’s implementation plan would require a compliance date delay for Unit 2.

A more strategic use of data on energy consumption and usage patterns is key to helping California make a sharp shift to meet the state’s clean energy goals of doubling energy efficiency savings in buildings and reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.

But access to data remains a challenge, including for those who are crafting policy or involved in energy planning.

To discuss California’s efforts to expand access to energy data and the repositories that house and protect information about energy use, California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister participated in a recent webinar organized by Mission Data, a national coalition of 35 companies.

“California’s energy data vision begins with taking our agency into the digital age,” Commissioner McAllister said. “We want to make sure that we ourselves are using the best information for our planning and analyses, and also that the marketplace has as much data as possible without compromising privacy.”

Data about the needs and constraints of the electricity grid can help inform policy. Such information can also help energy producers and utilities serve the needs of the grid and help consumers make informed decisions about their energy management.

Access to updated energy data allows the Energy Commission to generate more knowledge about usage patterns at a higher resolution than ever before. McAllister said adopting privacy protocols and providing open platforms for energy use baselines and trends would empower citizens to improve their lives, as well as hold government accountable.

Energy data repositories can be helpful for research, policy and planning. The marketplace can also use energy data through a permission-based access system that results in customer savings, for example by enabling energy service providers to quantify opportunities for savings and to understand which customers can benefit the most.

The Energy Commission encourages the use of data through its investments in research.

“We have a strong research component at the Energy Commission where we invest about $160 million a year in different projects, and we’re committed to enabling the marketplace to use the outputs of that work,” McAllister said.

Decarbonizing California’s buildings must be a core strategy if the state is to achieve the goal of a carbon-free economy by 2045, McAllister believes. Collecting accurate data and making it available while guarding privacy is vital to modernizing the development of energy policy and helping the state map a route to a clean-energy future, he said.

The California Energy Commission held a series of workshops throughout the state in the past month to discuss and gather input on the 2019 California Energy Efficiency Action Plan.

Interested stakeholders are encouraged to comment and provide recommendations by May 15 using the online docket system.

The 2019 action plan, which will update the Existing Buildings Energy Efficiency Action Plan and Senate Bill 350 Doubling Energy Efficiency Savings by 2030 report, will address existing building energy efficiency, efficiency in the industrial and agricultural sectors, barriers to energy efficiency for low-income and disadvantaged communities, and using efficiency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in buildings.

“The action plan is going to be the central policy for energy efficiency in the state,” said Commissioner Andrew McAllister, the Energy Commission’s lead on energy efficiency. “We need to develop programmatic approaches that allow flexibility and customization at the facility level. I want this action plan process to identify and promote solutions that will work in the real world.”

The workshops were held in San Francisco, Redding, Fresno, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Participants from each community participated in panel discussions on specific issues. All the workshops focused on building decarbonization, local government energy efficiency action plans, and savings in multifamily buildings. The Fresno and Redding locations had panels on capturing energy efficiency from the agricultural sector. Panels on the industrial sector were part of the San Francisco and San Diego events. Presentations on how building energy codes aid recovery and resilience after disasters were featured in Redding and San Diego.

The workshops provided an opportunity for representatives from local governments and organizations to discuss successes and challenges and share best practices. Workshop and docket comments and specific recommended actions will be taken into consideration in updating the action plan, which will be used to shape policy and make regulatory changes.

The workshop transcripts, presentations and agendas are here.

The Energy Commission would like to thank the following organizations whose representatives participated in the panel discussions:

San Francisco
California Public Utilities Commission
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Association for Energy Affordability
California Housing Partnership Corporation
Energy Efficiency for All
Enervee
OpenEE
CLEAResult
San Francisco State University
Pacific Gas and Electric
California Large Energy Consumers Association

Redding
Redding Electric Utility
Sonoma County
Sierra Business Council
City of Arcata
Karuk Community Development Corporation
Sacramento Municipal Utility District
California State University, Chico
Redwood Energy
Redwood Coast Energy Authority
Shasta Lake Electric Utility
UC Davis Western Cooling Efficiency Center

Fresno
San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District
San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy
Kern County
City of Arvin
Southern California Edison
De Young Properties
TRC
Fresno State University
California Department of Food and Agriculture
California League of Food Producers
Fresno Housing Authority
EPRI
Self-Help Enterprises

Los Angeles
Southern California Regional Energy Network
South Coast Air Quality Management District
City of Santa Monica
Western Riverside Council of Governments
The Energy Coalition
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power
Southern California Gas
Tri-County Regional Energy Network
Clean Power Alliance
Build it Green
Los Angeles Better Buildings Challenge

San Diego
City of San Diego
City of Glendale
San Diego State University
San Diego Gas and Electric
Cascade Energy
Center for Sustainable Energy
TRC
San Diego Association of Governments
City of Chula Vista
Wakeland Housing and Development
Community Housing Works

The California Energy Commission and California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group, formed last year to help ensure that the benefits of the 21st century grid reach low income households and hard-to-reach customers, has issued its annual report documenting first year successes.

The 11-member advisory group was convened in April 2018 to advise the Energy Commission and CPUC on ways to help disadvantaged communities, including tribal and rural communities, benefit from proposed clean energy and pollution reduction programs. The group meets several times a year to review Energy Commission and CPUC clean energy programs and policies to determine their effectiveness and usefulness in disadvantaged communities.

The annual report chronicled the group’s efforts during its first year. A highlight was the group’s input on the CPUC’s Environmental and Social Justice Action Plan, adopted in February. The plan is a roadmap for advancing equity in CPUC programs and policies. The group strengthened the definition of disadvantaged communities, emphasized health as it relates to communities, and strengthened the workforce development goal in the plan.

The group also refined the Energy Commission’s energy equity indicators, an online mapping tool that identifies and tracks opportunities to improve access to clean energy technologies for low-income customers and disadvantaged communities, increase clean energy investment in those communities, and improve community resilience to grid outages and extreme events.

The group also developed an equity framework to help guide it when examining climate investments or interventions under consideration by the Energy Commission or CPUC. The group used the framework to help expand the definition of vulnerable communities to include tribal communities and low-income areas.

Formation of the group was required in Senate Bill 350, the Clean Energy and Pollution Reduction Act of 2015. Group members are either from or represent disadvantaged communities.

To view the group’s first-year activities, or to learn more about the group, visit its web page.

Form Energy is developing a long-duration, low-cost battery that the company CEO says could set California a decade ahead of clean-energy goals.

Form Energy CEO and co-founder Mateo Jaramillo shared his vision at a California Energy Commission talk in April.

After leaving his position at Tesla, where he started and led the company’s stationary energy storage program through launch, Jaramillo was motivated by a question: “What kind of storage would it take to replace natural gas and cost effectively enable the 100 percent renewable grid?”

In further pursuit of the question, he served as executive-in-residence at the Cyclotron Road Fellowship Program, which received funds from the Energy Commission’s Electric Program Investment Charge program for its efforts to help innovators turn their ideas from concepts to a viable first product.

Today, he believes long-duration batteries are a critical part of the answer. Bulk energy storage would enable the use of clean energy throughout the year, bridging gaps in renewable electricity supply that can last days or even weeks, while also playing a complimentary role in the intra-day storage needs as well.

Jaramillo said Form Energy’s batteries, which are currently entering the engineering phase, will be able to cost effectively store and disperse energy across these timespans.

To do that, the batteries would need to be about 10 times cheaper than lithium ion batteries and to truly be able replace natural gas, the battery elements must also be in great abundance, and the plant designs must be able to achieve large-scale production from the outset, he said.

Jaramillo said batteries like Form Energy’s could help California reach Senate Bill 100’s carbon-free goals 10 years ahead of the 2045 target date.

Form Energy expects to have a battery design ready for pilot plant demonstration in several years. Jaramillo said the company, which is currently working with stakeholders throughout the state, hopes to apply for funds from EPIC, which funds energy innovation research and deployment.

A new communication tool may change the way electric vehicle drivers charge their cars and help them save money.

The California Energy Commission supported the testing of the communication protocol with the goal to reduce peak energy demand. The Energy Commission’s Electric Program Investment (EPIC) program, which supports energy innovation research, provided ChargePoint funding for the demonstration project.

“The goal is to match demand for electric vehicle charging to when there is available clean energy,” said Energy Commission Vice Chair Janea A. Scott. “This project examines how best to connect drivers to prime electric vehicle charging times.”

During certain times of the day, the demand for electricity spikes, so incentivizing people to charge their electric vehicles during lower demand or higher supply will help balance California’s grid. The communication protocol project enables advanced-charging capabilities that offer more flexibility for drivers and utility companies to manage the electric vehicle charging load.

The project gave 30 electric vehicle drivers the option to use personalized pricing depending on the time of day. San Diego Gas & Electric offered lower pricing during times when it was less costly to transmit the energy. Of the 1,000-recorded charging sessions, 58 percent of them were at the lower cost, producing an average annual savings of $467.

The project provided good results on how effective managing charging schedules can be, according to Matthew Fung, project leader and mechanical engineer in the Energy Commission’s Energy Research and Development Division.

“The benefits are, it simplifies the charging experience, making plug-in electric vehicle charging more user friendly, and saves money for the electric vehicle driver,” he said.

The communication protocol, which enables communication between electric vehicles and the charging equipment, is used in Europe and Asia and is expected to be widely integrated in the United States with many products arriving in 2020.

Fung said he hopes the new charging capabilities will motivate people to choose electric vehicles and reduce confusion about where and when to charge their vehicles.

“There was a big need for advance communication with charging stations,” he said. “The technology is there and available, and we’ll be ready for it when the market demands it.”

The Energy Commission’s EPIC program invests in innovation to help reduce energy costs and environmental impacts while ensuring a safe, resilient and reliable energy supply.

California’s public utilities are showing promising signs when it comes to the transition to renewable energy.

Senate Bill 350 requires California’s publicly owned utilities to update the public and regulators on their plans to progress toward meeting the state’s ambitious renewable energy goals at least once every five years, with the first ones to be submitted to the California Energy Commission in 2019.

These updates, called Integrated Resource Plans (IRPs), offer a detailed look into how POUs across the state plan to pivot away from fossil fuels and expand their renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar.

Anaheim Public Utilities, one of the larger POUs, indicated in its 2018 IRP that it is on track to significantly reduce its fossil fuels dependence. The report also noted Anaheim is on solid footing to meeting the latest renewable energy targets.

The utility’s latest Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) report, which breaks down the various sources of energy used by Anaheim, lists renewable energy sources at 29 percent of its total energy portfolio for 2018. The number illustrates that the utility is on its way to achieving the clean energy goals set by Senate Bill 350, according to the plan.

With SB 100, California utilities need to obtain 60 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Anaheim indicated in its IRP that its future portfolio should have enough flexibility to absorb additional renewable energy purchases beyond the 50 percent RPS requirement.

The plan said Anaheim’s sizable portfolio of clean energy will see sharp increases in the coming years thanks to the expansion of new solar power generating stations, as well as the utility’s divestment from coal power.

Anaheim delivers more than 3.7 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy to 350,000 residents and more than 15,000 businesses across its service area.

Three fire stations in Fremont are now prepared to keep emergency services flowing if the electricity grid shuts down. The technological advance was noted at a ribbon-cutting ceremony this month.

The trio of stations are equipped with solar panels linked to battery storage systems, a combination that operates as a microgrid because the power captured and stored creates a self-contained power grid.

The majority of funding for the demonstration project in the East Bay city came from the California Energy Commission’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program, which funds energy innovation research.

Gridscape Solutions, a project partner that also provided funding, is deploying several microgrids at critical facilities. Gridscape said the Fremont project has prepared it to commercialize the technology for mass market adoption.

The microgrids at the fire stations provide a local distribution of electricity, enable the stations to operate during a power outage, and use clean energy resources. It is a trifecta of resiliency, emergency preparedness and sustainability, said Christina Briggs, Fremont’s economic development director.

Briggs said the project “was really a no brainer for the city to put its full force behind.”

The microgrids are designed to provide at least three hours of backup power during utility outage. During one test at one fire station, electric power from solar and battery storage was provided for about 13 hours.

The project will reap a range of benefits. The microgrids are expected to save Fremont more than $250,000 over 10 years in electricity costs. The project will also help the city achieve its climate goals since the microgrids will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.