Expected California Ruling: Critical Opportunity to Improve California Grid Data. Will Regulators Seize It?

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This text was initially revealed on July 30, 2024. It was up to date on October 1 to mirror new developments within the regulatory continuing.

California is seemed to as a frontrunner in clear power, and rightly so. It is without doubt one of the nation’s main producers of renewable power and has pioneered groundbreaking clear power and transportation insurance policies. However this management is threatened by inaccuracies in key electrical grid knowledge revealed by the state’s utilities, which have been ongoing for a number of years.

The California Public Utilities Fee (CPUC) is predicted to subject a ruling quickly (mid to late October 2024) that might treatment these points, and pave the way in which for extra environment friendly and reasonably priced clear power and electrical car adoption within the state. A draft of its Proposed Decision was launched on September 13. The draft is constructive in that it might require the creation of a working group to treatment a few of these points. Nonetheless, it fails to incorporate any deadline for these enhancements to be included, a major oversight on condition that these challenges have already persevered for a few years.

On this article, we discover the character and historical past of those grid knowledge points in California, why they matter, and what modifications to the Proposed Choice IREC believes the Fee ought to think about to most successfully resolve these issues.

You can also download our factsheet on this issue here.

What’s Mistaken with California’s Public Grid Information?

Thanks partly to over a decade of labor by public curiosity advocates, California utilities have been required to develop among the nation’s greatest electrical grid knowledge transparency instruments, known as “Integration Capacity Analyses” or ICAs.

An ICA is a mannequin of the electrical grid in map type that reveals how a lot electrical energy technology or demand (“load”) might be added in several areas with out pricey upgrades.

Sadly, since they had been first revealed in 2019, quite a few points with the accuracy, completeness, and recency of ICA knowledge revealed by California’s investor-owned utilities (PG&E, SCE, and SDG&E) have been recognized. These points restrict the flexibility of unpolluted power builders and different stakeholders to make use of the ICA as supposed.

Why Do ICAs Matter for Clear Power?

ICAs supply vital advantages for the event and siting of unpolluted power, together with:

• Serving to builders select optimum areas for clear power and EV charging initiatives the place they’re much less prone to require costly grid upgrades. (These upgrades can price tens or a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} and add months or years to the timeline of a mission.)
• Offering utilities with worthwhile knowledge to tell and prioritize infrastructure investments on the electrical grid.
• Enhancing the effectivity of selections about whether or not clear power initiatives might be permitted to hook up with the electrical grid. (Since 2022, the CPUC has required the utilities to make use of ICA knowledge in interconnection overview processes for sure DERs, taking the place of extra time-consuming critiques.)
• Enabling DERs to function based mostly on an export schedule that helps grid wants and reduces prices. California made clean energy history in March by changing into the primary state to allow clear power methods to suggest an working schedule when making use of to hook up with the grid. Underneath this strategy, permitted initiatives can join with out requiring grid upgrades which may in any other case be wanted, as a result of they limit energy output at occasions when the grid is constrained in its skill to just accept further electrical technology. This protects money and time and permits extra clear power on the grid.

All of those purposes are solely potential, nonetheless, if the information within the ICA is correct and saved updated.

What’s the Historical past of ICA Information Points in California?

The Fee first required utilities to develop ICAs in 2015 below a pilot program; it required their full publication in 2019. When the primary full ICA maps had been launched in 2019, IREC found severe inaccuracies within the knowledge.

For instance, PG&E’s map was so inaccurate it indicated that its complete grid was unable to just accept any new electrical energy technology (e.g., photo voltaic, and many others.) and 30% of its system was not even displayed. SDG&E and SCE’s map additionally had points. The maps additionally had questionable knowledge on capability for brand spanking new load (comparable to that wanted for electrical car charging). Initially, all three utility maps confirmed zero capability for brand spanking new load throughout the overwhelming majority of their methods, defying frequent sense.

Since then, quite a few different points have arisen:

• SCE continues to make vital errors that end in delayed or faulty knowledge;
• SDG&E has repeatedly violated Fee orders by not displaying required knowledge;
• SCE and PG&E proceed to not replace their maps on the required frequency: when an ICA is old-fashioned, the accuracy of the information it reveals can’t be trusted.

Whereas the Fee has slowly required fixes to a few of these issues, 5 years after the ICAs had been first launched, many of those points are nonetheless ongoing. ICA growth just isn’t easy, and a studying curve is predicted. However after practically a decade of labor by the utilities and tens of millions of ratepayer {dollars} spent, it’s cheap to anticipate that these probably game-changing instruments needs to be totally practical.

A Essential Second for Regulatory Enforcement

On September 13, the Fee launched a Proposed Decision that addresses these challenges; it’s anticipated to make an official ruling later this month. The Proposed Choice is a step in the fitting path as a result of (along with different issues) it might require the creation of a working group to treatment a few of these accuracy points. Sadly, it fails to incorporate any deadline for these enhancements to be included, a major oversight on condition that these challenges have already persevered for a few years.

IREC strongly helps the workshop course of, however the Fee should impose significant targets, timelines, and accountability measures. The public record on this continuing is stuffed with examples of resistance to those efforts on the a part of the state’s investor-owned utilities and failures to tangibly enhance the ICA regardless of a number of efforts much like the one the Fee is now recommending. If the Fee doesn’t construct extra concrete targets into this determination, IREC anticipates that the end result will probably be one other a number of years of course of with out outcomes.

Moreover, there are some modifications, particularly requiring utilities to replace their ICA maps on a month-to-month foundation, that needs to be applied now, as a substitute of pushing them right into a working group course of. Month-to-month ICA updates are a long-standing requirement from the Fee, that among the utilities have declined to adjust to. IREC recommends that the Fee give the utilities not more than 120 days from its order to undertake and implement a dependable system for month-to-month updates to the ICA.

IREC additionally recommends including two particular necessities to make sure sufficient communication about ICA points going ahead. First, we advocate that the Fee institute a requirement for utilities to promptly notify each it and the general public when accuracy points with the ICAs are recognized. That is vital to make sure, for instance, that clear power mission builders don’t make investments a whole bunch of hundreds of {dollars} securing a web site and designing a mission based mostly on defective info. Second, along with offering well timed discover of points, we advocate that utilities needs to be required to speak when these issues are anticipated to be resolved and some other related info.

IREC continues to observe and have interaction on this docket. This week, IREC will submit feedback on the Proposed Choice to the Fee, reflecting the above suggestions. “Reply comments” responding to the preliminary spherical of feedback from IREC and different events will probably be due October 8. Then the Fee will schedule a gathering to subject its last ruling (possible October seventeenth or twenty fourth). If you’re not subscribed to our emails, you can sign up here to stay in the loop on future developments.

Get Concerned: If this matter is vital to you, you can too submit your personal public remark or make a remark at any upcoming CPUC assembly previous to the ultimate vote. Additional information on how to do so can be found here on the CPUC website (the continuing quantity is R2106017).

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Delays connecting clear power to the grid are a number one barrier to scrub power progress. Delays connecting the brand new hundreds wanted for transportation and constructing electrification are maybe much more dire, significantly threatening the state’s skill to fulfill electrical car mandates. Correct ICAs can speed up clear power and EV charger deployment whereas decreasing the necessity for pricey grid upgrades.

IREC urges the Fee to acknowledge the intense risk that continued non-compliance with ICA necessities presents to California’s clear power and electrification mandates, and decide to resolving these points as soon as and for all by agency deadlines for enhancements, necessities for clear communication when ICA accuracy points are discovered, and by requiring utilities to begin updating their ICA maps on a month-to-month foundation.

Visitor article from IRISH.