CleanStart Perspectives: Decarbonizing California’s Grid: The Next Chapter

CleanStart Perspectives: Decarbonizing California’s Grid: The Next Chapter

The clean energy transition is well underway, but still far from complete. What’s the journey ahead?

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Join us as we talk with Nick Pappas of NP Energy about decarbonizing California’s grid. Nick will discuss the journey ahead, including Community Choice Aggregators (CCA’s) and how they are evolving.

Nick is an energy industry leader with 10+ years of experience developing and shaping California energy policy while helping energy industry stakeholders navigate complex policy and market challenges.

CleanStart Perspectives are short online conversations to connect the greater Sacramento clean tech entrepreneurship community and share insights, experiences, and outlooks. Join us as we welcome our featured guests to share their perspective on what entrepreneurs and innovators can do to thrive and grow.

Register and we’ll send you the Zoom login information prior to the meeting time.

CleanStart Perspectives are recorded through Zoom.

FERC Order 2222 Opening up DER to Wholesale Market

FERC Order 2222 Opening up DER to Wholesale Market

FERC directs regional grid operators to revise their tariffs to establish DERs as a category of market participants. While this does not immediately change the landscape, the new rules could provide an opportunity for smaller generation from companies like Helios Altas and Wind Harvest International to be used in DER projects.  

Distributed energy resources have been hampered historically by being too small to justify operating on the Energy Grid. Being able to operate on the Grid allows for a smaller grid to buy and sell energy in the larger market.  This is important for DERs to make financial sense and for their reliability.  Currently, many Grids and energy markets have financial barriers that make smaller energy generation uncompetitive. 

Overall this should increase energy competition and grid reliability. In California, there still are major obstacles in connecting and interacting effectively with the Grid.  

Learn more about the FERC ruling here.

Solar Surprise: Three great companies speak at MeetUp

Solar Surprise: Three great companies speak at MeetUp

So often people are surprised what high-impact clean tech companies we have in the region and last night (Jan. 24) it happened again.  Three great companies that few ever heard of addressed a packed crowd at our MeetUp held at Valley Vision in Oak Park. Leigh Zanone showed how 8minute Energy Renewables in El Dorado Hills was one of the larger solar developers in the state.  Particularly of interest was how they were ahead of the pack in understanding how quickly solar panel prices would drop. They bid the lowest prices anyone had heard of, but yet were very profitable as actual panel prices fell faster than expected.  One of their latest projects in Nevada won with a bid under $25/MWh. They now have over 10 GW of projects under development and 1100 MW in operation, and are making storage an added feature of their projects. They have been growing rapidly as they focus more and more on projects elsewhere than California.  

Becca Russell of Grid Alternatives, a nonprofit organization, explained their program of targeting low income homes for installation of solar paid entirely from fundraising and grants. From a modest start in North Natomas in 2004, they now reach across the country with an office in Colorado opened five years ago and beyond with projects in Nepal, Mexico and Nicaragua.  They not only install systems, but also train a workforce of local installers and manage teams of volunteers. They have programs for native American tribes. And clean mobility is a new area for them, helping people get access to electric vehicles and charging equipment through partnerships with others. Their next move, Becca said, was into multi-family structures. The focus to date has been on owner-occupied single family homes.

Scott Barrington of Trimark Associates in Folsom wrapped up the night explaining now they are the world’s leading independent provider of metering and plant status data on solar PV generation and now are expanding to provide that service for all forms of generation and storage worldwide, including microgrids.  Over 70% of all power in California is now metered through Trimark equipment.  Their main innovation is a Remote Intelligence Gateway (RIG) that is certified to provide real time data to the market and to schedulers like Cal ISO.  Now they have expanded far beyond data acquisition to add control and system management functions.

Surprised?  The audience certainly was.  Frankly, so were we. And that’s exactly what we want to happen.  The discussion was very lively and it was hard to get people to leave at the end.  So many connections were made.

Here’s a final surprise.  We recorded the event. If you want to see what happened, check our website.  It’s all there. It should convince you that you are missing a big opportunity to learn about our clean tech cluster through these MeetUps.  Plan to come in the future.

Our next MeetUp will be February 28 at the Sac State Alumni Center off College Town Drive.  It will occur in conjunction with the expo of faculty research from the College of Engineering and Computer Science, and the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.  Lots of exhibits to see in addition to our usual discussions. Come nerd-out with us.

Thomas Hall

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gary Simon is the Chair of CleanStarts Board. A seasoned energy executive and entrepreneur with 45 years of experience in business, government, and non-profits.

Highlighting Our Greatest Challenges & Opportunities – EPIC 2018

Highlighting Our Greatest Challenges & Opportunities – EPIC 2018

“It’s not often your study gets interrupted by the thing you are studying,” started Dr. Larry Dale during a breakout session at the 2018 EPIC Symposium held this last Wednesday at the Sacramento Convention center.  Dr. Dale had been studying the impact of wildfires on the transmission and distribution grid when last fall’s havoc broke out in Southern California.

Fires, earthquakes, and don’t forget rising oceans, are all on the horizon for CA in this climate changing world; luckily California has several ongoing efforts to make the grid more resistant to catastrophic events. Check out Blue Lake Rancheria’s Microgrid presented by Energy Director Jana Ganion, the developing utility owned community Microgrid at Borrego Springs presented by Chief Engineer Dr. Tom Bialek, and Eos Energy Storage, a diverse storage technology to promote higher resiliency presented by VP of Sales Jim Morgenson. All the panelists highlighted their tools and successes against the threat of extreme weather events, and moreover reminded us that increased awareness of the need to enhance the power grid resiliency is critical now more than ever.

Beyond power system resilience, EPIC tackled a number of clean energy innovation topics inclusive of highly efficient buildings, battery storage for grid operations, accurate forecasting for the modern grid, and how all these solutions can be scaled to benefit disadvantaged communities and low-income customers.

New incubators and accelerators are popping up to meet these challenges and encourage clean energy innovation. Blue Tech Valley (BTV) is a prime example of this and the first major movement to accelerate entrepreneurship in the San Joaquin Valley.  Panelist Dr. David Zoldoske of California University Fresno stated that the hurdle for agriculture is “shining a light on our challenges” and  “educating Silicon Valley”.  Agriculture Tech is a billion dollar industry and huge opportunity for clean energy innovation, however the modern entrepreneur must adapt to the different paces of the farming world in order to be effective.

EPIC’s 2018 symposium highlighted some of California’s greatest clean energy opportunities and challenges in the coming decades. The conversation caught CleanStart’s attention, and with a turn out three times that of the previous year, we weren’t the only ones.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate is a recent graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and has a strong background in entrepreneurship and global politics. After helping launch an AgTech startup on the central coast, Kate is back in her hometown looking to take her experience into the world of Cleantech and help grow the Sacramento region.