POWER January 2013 - 56

FUTURE POWER
4. Snubbing offshore wind. Offshore
wind is excellent in Northern California, but no
one talks about developing it. This map shows
the annual average wind power estimates at a
height of 50 meters and ignores environmentally
sensitive areas. Source: National Renewable
Energy Laboratory
Wind
power
class
Resource
potential
3 Fair
4 Good
5 Excellent
6 Outstanding
7 Superb
distribution of network power flows without potentially
adverse grid reliability impacts. " What
this means is that even small changes to the
network flow patterns, such as from developing
more renewable energy, may not be possible
without significant transmission upgrades.
According to the LADWP, the myriad
clean energy mandates require the public
utility to change 70% of its power system in
a relatively short period of time.
If power supply inside population areas is
being shut down and renewable power to the
west inside or outside the state can't get in, it
seems certain that new DG facilities have to
replace the older power station capacity.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
DG is also an important part of the state's
economic development plan. A big motivation
for the state's clean energy strategy is to
have it serve as an engine for jobs creation
and as an export base for advanced electricity
infrastructure and electric vehicle systems
(another element of the California strategy).
Interestingly, the location of DG systems is
5. Ignoring other offshore resources.
Offshore oil and gas resources that could
be leased from the federal government are
also not part of any California energy plan. This
map shows offshore undiscovered technically
recoverable oil and natural gas reserves.
Source: Minerals Management Service, Department
of the Interior
Off Limits
being allocated on the basis of electricity consumption
(weighted 40%), low- to moderate-income
households (20%), unemployed workers
(20%), and distribution system capacity (20%).
So, not only will the manufacturing of DG systems
create jobs, installing them where the unemployed
live also will help put people to work,
so the theory goes. Estimates of the cumulative
number of jobs (2011-2020) that will be created
through the state's clean energy strategy show
that demand-side activities will be responsible
for three to five times as many jobs as activities
in renewable energy and five to 15 times as
many jobs as activities in transmission.
It's pretty clear where the state believes
the job creation engine lies.
Not surprisingly, while the rest of the counWashington/
Oregon
Northern
California
Central
California
Southern
California
0.4
Bbl
2.28 Tcf
2.08 Bbl
3.58 Tcf
2.31 Bbl
2.41 Tcf
5.58 Bbl
9.75 Tcf
try latches onto the shale gas revolution, the
West Coast has seen the largest reduction in
natural gas production of any region in the
country. Production has declined 33% there
while, for example, production more than
doubled in the eastern U.S., according to data
from the Energy Information Administration.
It's truly a fascinating dichotomy. California
is driving its economy by reducing energy
consumption, while one of the only " jobs
engines " in the eastern part of the U.S. during
the recession and prolonged weak recovery
has been the boom in oil and gas extraction
from shale plays.
No Coastal Supply
One thing's for sure: California isn't looking
offshore for any of its energy needs. As states
along the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf Coast
eye offshore wind enthusiastically, the resource
isn't even mentioned in California planning ac56
www.powermag.com
tivities.
Yet Northern California has some of the
best offshore wind resources (Figure 4) in the
country, and the offshore West Coast as a whole
has some of the best oil/gas resources (Figure
5) outside of the Gulf of Mexico.
Distributed Storage
California has been active in developing energy
storage technologies for many years; it's one of
only two states with an active research, development,
and deployment program (New York
being the other). It is also the only state considering,
through AB 2541, setting targets for how
much energy storage utilities should procure.
The California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) is scheduled to make its recommendation
by October 2013 for a first energy
storage procurement target to be achieved by
affected load-serving entities by December
31, 2015. The recommendation, however,
can also be that no target should be set. The
CPUC is currently developing " use cases " to
determine commercial readiness of technologies,
operational viability, benefit streams,
policy options, and deployment barriers.
Storage has also become a key element in
the state's Integrated Energy Resource Plan.
However, relevant agencies' (CPUC, CEC,
and the California Independent System Operator)
planning and policy documents and
presentations almost exclusively focus on
distributed storage.
Bulk storage solutions, like pumped hydro
storage (PHS) and compressed air energy
storage (CAES), are hardly mentioned, even
though at least a dozen PHS projects are in active
development in the state, and several others
in neighboring states could serve the California
market. Three CAES projects are also being
contemplated by utilities in the state; two received
stimulus funding. However, the CAES
projects are proceeding slowly, if at all.
Storage systems and natural gas-fired plants,
in fact, now are considered mostly as support
for filling in around intermittently available renewable
energy. Quoting from the latest version
of the CEC Integrated Energy Policy Report
(IEPR), " Integrating [intermittent resources]
will require a combination of complementary
resources like energy storage, demand response,
smart grid technologies, and flexible natural gas
plants. " In fact, every mention of energy storage
in the IEPR, except one, discusses storage in
connection with distributed resources. ■
-Jason Makansi (jmakansi@ pearlstreetinc
.com) is president of Pearl Street Inc., a
technology deployment services firm. This
article is based on material taken from a
PGS Energy Training Seminar developed
and presented by the author in Sacramento,
April 2012, and Portland, Ore., October
2012: " California Clean Energy and the
Rest of the West. "
POWER | January 2013
http://www.powermag.com
POWER January 2013

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