CRAIG KOHLRUSS/ckohlruss@fresnobee.com
Maggie Angst
Wed, June 21, 2023
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s decision to prolong the life of controversial power plants to help keep the lights on in California is once again being questioned by environmentalists.
A new report released Wednesday, commissioned by the California Environmental Justice Alliance and Sierra Club, said that during last year’s unprecedented heat wave, California’s natural gas-fired plants failed to generate the expected levels of power while significantly increasing pollution in nearby communities.
“This report really underscores that in planning for the reliable grid of the future, investing in more fossil fuels is a bad investment and a misguided plan not just for environmental justice communities, but also for California ratepayers as a whole and for our climate,” said Teresa Cheng, a senior campaign representative for Sierra Club.
From last August 31 to September 9, triple-digit temperatures baked much of the state, including Sacramento, in one of the most prolonged heat waves in recent California history. It placed unprecedented strain on power supplies, driving energy demand to a record height of 52,000 megawatts.
Although rolling blackouts were narrowly kept at bay as Newsom pleaded with Californians to reduce their energy use, the report says the state’s gas plants worsened the air quality in some communities.
Alex Stack, a spokesperson for Newsom, said Wednesday afternoon that he could not comment on the report because the governor’s office had not yet had time to analyze it. In a statement, Stack touted the governor’s leadership on climate initiatives and said the state’s recent investments in aging fossil fuel infrastructure created “an essential backup resource” for extreme weather events.
Gavin Newsom takes heat for prolonged life of gas plants
The fate of the state’s nearly 200 nearly grid-connected natural gas power plants has been a contentious issue for Newsom and environmentalists as California pushes toward a clean energy future. State law mandates that the electricity grid be 100% renewable by 2045.
Tensions rose in August 2020 when, weeks after Californians endured rolling blackouts for the first time since 2001, the State Water Resources Control Board voted to allow nine high-polluting generating units to operate for up to three more years.
Then last year, Newsom authorized a plan giving the state broad authority to approve new proposals and purchase electricity from a group of plants scheduled to be retired in the next few years. These included the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and a group of high-polluting natural gas-fired plants on the Southern California coast.
Newsom and his administration argue the prolonged life of the plants is critical to maintaining the electricity grid reliability.
“Action is needed now to maintain reliable energy service as the state accelerates the transition to clean energy,” Newsom said of his energy plan last year.
Critics argue that the administration’s policies represent a “flawed plan” for energy reliability and take away state resources that should be dedicated to expanding its fleet of renewable energy.
“Regulators and agencies and the executive branch will extend these plants and sort of push back the timeline on how long fossil fuel infrastructure will be kept online and say that that will then allow us to procure enough clean energy to ultimately turn them off,” said Ari Eisenstadt, energy equity manager at California Environmental Justice Alliance. “But we’ve seen over and over again, is that that hasn’t actually happened.”
During the 2022 heat wave, Newsom signed executive orders allowing for the use of diesel backup generators and the idling of ships off of California ports. Both measures caused increased harm to disadvantaged communities, according to the report.
Emissions from California’s gas plants spiked by 60% during the 10-day heat wave compared to the pollution emitted in the 10 days prior, according to the report. The carbon dioxide emissions alone were equivalent to the pollution produced by 43,000 vehicles in a year, the report found.
California gas plants pose grid reliability challenges
Although the sun is typically the state’s largest energy source during hot summer days, California still relies heavily on natural gas during evening peak demand hours because of wind and solar power shortages.
As the report notes, some of the state’s fossil fuel plants — especially those that are aging and gas-fired — pose issues for the grid’s reliability. Amid the 10-day heat wave last year, plants experienced power outages and equipment failures and were unable to produce the levels of power expected of them.
“I think that’s to be expected because a lot of these plants that are running when the system is really in a crunch are the older, inefficient plants,” said Michael Goggin, vice president at Grid Strategies, the consulting company that produced the report.
Goggin estimated that the lost power over those 10 days cost the state $280 million.
With demand expected to continue climbing, state officials and utility companies like Pacific Gas & Electric and the Sacramento Municipal Utility District are working to scale up renewable energy sources, including wind, solar and battery power. State officials are hopeful that thousands of new megawatts of battery storage being added to the electricity grid this year will help to diminish the chances of blackouts.
Environmentalists commend those efforts but say a detailed for about how the state plans to retire its fleet of fossil fuel plants is needed.
No comments:
Post a Comment