Be Careful What You Wish For...

As California rushes like a bull in a china shop headong into its renewable energy mandate, the unintended consequences are starting to pop up all over the place.

Two items jumped out of the news this morning:

SMUD's uses of hydroelectric power is up to 17% of its total generation, and when it comes to renewable energy in California, more is better, right? Wrong! The Department of Fish and Game has filed a complaint with the California Water Resources Control Board, claiming that SMUD has been diverting more water from the river than permitted during the past four decades - accumulating 738 days of violations.

Also, CAL-ISO is now asking FERC to approve a new plan for financing gen-ties. It seems that solar, geothermal and wind energy all kind of lend themselves to energy generation in really remote places and that requires expensive new long-distance, high-capacity, high-voltage lines. But how to pay for them?

Currently, project developers have to start paying for gen-ties up front. Renewable Energy Access describes the new CAL-ISO proposal:

"The California ISO proposal calls for the initial costs of multi-user resource trunkline transmission projects to be paid by the transmission owners and recouped through the [Transmission Access Charges (TAC's)]. As generators connect to the new trunkline they will pay a pro-rated share of the costs based
on their generating capacity. The generator payments will reduce the cost recovered through the TAC."

Now, maybe there is a compromise that can be reached in the SMUD situation and perhaps there is a legislative fix for financing gen-ties, but all of this just further underscores how California's overly ambitious rollout of the RPS needs some serious tinkering...

SMUD faces complaints of excess water consumption [California Aggie]

California Asks Government to Back Grid Plan [Renewable Energy Access]