Green Wombat

Here’s some sobering reading for startups and other companies hoping to cash in on California’s green energy boom by building solar power stations, wind farms and wave generators: The Golden State is faltering in its efforts to meet a mandate to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2010 and a third of its power from solar, wind and other green sources by 2020, according to a new report from the California Energy Commission. The review finds that renewable energy’s share of total electricity produced in California actually fell .3 percent last year while the state’s three big investor-owned utilities have made scant progress over the past couple years in tapping renewable energy sources.  The report details the challenges California – the world’s sixth-largest economy – faces in realizing the goals set in its landmark global warming law. Achieving renewable energy targets is critical if the state is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020.

So in a land blessed by abundant sunshine, wind and waves, what’s the problem? The report identifies red tape and uncertainty over the contracting process for renewable energy projects as partly to blame for the fact that California utilities have signed some 4,200 megawatts worth of contracts for green electricity but only 240 megawatts have gone online to date. But the biggest obstacle, according to the commission, is years of delay in building transmission lines to connect new solar and wind power stations to the California grid. For instance, San Diego Gas & Electric has signed an agreement to
purchase 300 megawatts of electricity from Stirling Energy Systems, which plans to build a massive solar power plant in the California desert. Problem is, there’s no transmission line to move the electricity to the grid as the proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission project (shown below) has been bogged down in bureaucracy. Likewise, a project that would allow the transmission of 700 megawatts of new wind energy from the wind-blown Tehachapi region has been languishing in limbo land. The energy commission meets next Thursday, December 7, to discuss the report and recommendations for speeding the availability of renewable energy. Click here for webcasts of energy commission meetings.