CALIFORNIA'S CLEAN ENERGY TRANSITION PLAN 15
Most of the new electric generation procured to date
has been solar, energy storage, and wind. While solar
is the predominant electric generator during the day,
as the sun sets, natural gas-red generators ramp
up power production to meet peak demand in the
evening and before onshore wind generators start to
produce in the later nighttime hours.
As the electric grid decarbonizes, clean electric
resources that can store excess onshore wind and
solar power and are "on call” to deliver electricity are
essential to maintaining electric grid reliability at all
times. The state has initiated the development of new
long-duration energy storage technologies and clean
“rm” electric resources capable of generating power
continuously. For example, the CEC’s Long-Duration
Energy Storage Program is providing $140 million to
long-duration energy storage projects throughout
the state to help commercialize and scale new
technologies.
In addition, the CPUC has ordered the procurement
of 2,000 MW of new long-duration energy storage
projects and 2,000 MW of clean rm electric
resources, such as geothermal, by 2028.
The CPUC has ordered the 40 electric retail sellers
under its jurisdiction — electric investor-owned utilities
(IOUs), community choice aggregators (CCAs), and
energy service providers (ESPs) — to procure an
unprecedented quantity of clean electric resources
and the efforts are yielding results. However, project
development complexities and market fragmentation
among sellers have failed to result in signicant
Procurement of Diverse Clean Electricity Resources
procurement of certain diverse resources – such as
offshore wind, geothermal generation, and long-
duration energy storage – needed to meet the state’s
clean and reliable portfolio. These electric resources
often have lengthy development timelines due to the
unique and complex permitting, interconnection,
and construction requirements. In addition, these
resources are typically the most expensive, more
complicated, and larger than other electric resources
that do not possess the same types of characteristics,
attributes, and proles needed for our future clean
and reliable grid. While they provide electric resource
diversity benets in a model portfolio, such electric
resources are not being procured because of the
inherent development risks, timing uncertainties, and,
in some cases, signicant cost.
To address these challenges, a central procurement
mechanism combining the buying power of
customers could cost-effectively procure these
types of resources, with the resulting benets
spread among all customers. Consideration of such
a mechanism is critical for California to achieve
100 percent clean electricity. In addition, this
procurement mechanism could be a key tool to
develop offshore wind electric projects in federal
waters off the California coast. California's Central
and North Coasts present the state with a remarkable
opportunity to develop thousands of megawatts of
electric generation capacity and can generate power
during key times of the day and year. Developing
these projects will require new and expanded electric
transmission infrastructure to bring the power
generated to portions of the state with the most
electricity demand.