Environmental Law

Report Assesses Transmission Access Future for Renewables

By Dennis Pfaff and Kevin Livingston, Editors

It’s not billed as picking winners and losers but a new report issued by consultants to a multi-agency effort planning California’s transmission infrastructure gives some idea of what types of renewable energy projects have a bright future, at least when it comes to getting access to the grid.

The document in effect recommends that for some technologies, including anaerobic digestion and landfill gas, no further planning should be done on access to transmission lines. But it is much more favorable toward technologies such as biomass, solar (both thermal and photovoltaic), small hydro, wind and geothermal. Wave and marine current energy fell into a gray area, with the consultants recommending no further planning right now but instead keeping an eye on further developments.

Prepared by Black & Veatch Corporation, a large international consulting and contracting firm, the report, dated March 14, could be significant because it constitutes a first step in the state’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, which is often known by its acronym, RETI. The project is designed to take a strategic and unified approach to siting transmission lines to serve renewable generation resources located in California or elsewhere in the West. The next phase of the process involves ranking the cost-effectiveness of delivering power from specific interconnection points.

The report noted that meeting California’s ambitious goals for renewable power “will require a substantial amount of new transmission development, as most large-scale renewable resources are located in remote areas rather than near the state’s major load centers.” State law, although it has some flexibility, requires that 20 percent of electric energy come from renewable resources by 2010 and a 2005 executive order signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger anticipates that figure should hit 33 percent by 2020 as part of the state’s strategy for meeting the requirements of the greenhouse gas reduction law, AB 32.

The report incorporated a variety of assumptions, including renewable demand, and information about current generation and the transmission system. It also looked at resource operating and cost assumptions, as well as economic assumptions. A key criteria was the development of the “base case,” or group of resources the RETI process included as the starting point. For power generation, that incorporated renewable projects that are operating or currently under construction, or those that are in advanced planning stages with contracts and permits in place.

Whether or not to include a technology in the next phase, known as Phase 1B, of study depended on a number of factors, according to the report, including the likelihood the resource had enough potential to contribute to the state’s renewable portfolio standards, the ability to deliver power cost-effectively to the grid and the maturity of the technology. According to the report: 

“Based on these assessments, resources with limited potential to provide energy to California are eliminated from further review in Phase 1B. While there may be discrete resources in these regions that might provide energy to California, there are not sufficient resources in these areas to merit exploring potential new transmission to access these resources.”  

The report concluded that anaerobic digestion -- which generates power from such sources as municipal sewage treatment plants and livestock operations -- and landfill gas were, among other things, too small to include in the next phase. On the other hand, it concluded the potential for solar voltaic was "virtually unlimited" and that for biomass was “substantial.”

Interested parties can participate in a Webcast scheduled for March 26 and can submit comments until March 28. Overseeing the RETI project are the California Public Utilities Commission, the California Energy Commission and the California Independent System Operator, as well as several publicly owned utilities.

An recently prepared by Peter V. Allen and Paul C. Lacourciere of Thelen Reid Brown Raysman & Steiner contains further details and background about the RETI process. It is available here. 

(Wikipedia photograph of electrical transmission lines in Sweden)

Full post as published by Climate Law Update on March 17, 2008 (boomark / email).