Inside SCE's Green Machine.

Neal Dikeman of the Cleantech blog offers an interesting peak behind the curtain at Southern California Edison. Dikeman blogs about his interview with Stuart Hemphill, the Director of Renewable and Alternative Power for SCE.

Among the high points:

- SCE has a team of 40 people working on renewable power generaion/supply.

- Hemphill brags that SCE is the greenest utility in the country.

- In 2006 SCE purchased 13 Billion kwh of electricity from renewables, about 17% of its needs.

- More than half of this green power is geothermal, with solar and wind making up the rest.

- For SCE, the biggest issue is not supply of green power but transmission.

- SCE buys 90% of the country’s solar energy.

- SCE has $17 Billion in capital to be spent over the next 5 years in transmission and distribution, but that could be/will be held up by regulators and environmental groups.

- The market for building green power plants is so active right now that SCE has no interest in building any of its own.

- Utilities are doing a great job at going green; Energy Services Companies aren’t doing squat (according to Hemphill).

- REC’s are the key to meeting the green mandate.

The entire post is interesting and worth a read…

Big Green Power is Flowing, But Where Are The Power Lines? [Cleantech Blog]