LISTSERV: Cal-IRES News

Building our capacity: We are increasingly able to rely on the Cal-IRES website as our communications hub and program information repository. We are pleased to note that Monique Romero has accepted a position as our web graphic design developer. Our website is very much a product of Monique’s talent and expertise as a part-time consultant, and we are very glad to welcome her as a permanent member of the Cal-IRES and UC Davis Energy Institute team.

Reaching out for good advice: We are also pleased to welcome new advisors, including Mike DeAngelis, Manager, Advanced Renewable and Distributed Generation Technologies, SMUD; Blair Swezey, Director, California Market Development and Policy, SunPower Corp.; and Carl Weinberg, Principal, Weinberg Associates. Our advisors will soon be asked to convene and help set our priorities and focus our planning for 2011.

General Renewable Integration items:

• We continue to post upcoming events related to renewable energy integration on our web site, such as the Commission’s PIER program upcoming symposium “Paving the Way for Renewables” taking place on October 25 in Sacramento, CA or by remote webcast. For 2011, we’ve posted the “Save the Date” notice for April’s UC Energy Week at UC Davis.
• In our September blog we referenced the KEMA white paper on Virtual Power Plants (VPP), and Gerry’s presentation at their Innovation Forum on the connection between VPPs and Renewable Energy Secure Communities (RESCOs). Pike Research senior analyst, Peter Asmus, contacted Cal-IRES during his research on Virtual Power Plants (VPP) and creation of a data base of pending VPP projects. Their report on Virtual Power Plants has recently been published, with an executive summary and report brochure available for download at: http://www.pikeresearch.com/research/virtual-power-plants. Peter’s blog about VPPs ("an Internet of Energy") and how they differ from micro-grids can be found here: http://www.pikeresearch.com/blog/articles/what%e2%80%99s-this-buzz-about-virtual-power-plants
• Cal-IRES Advisor Larisa Dobriansky shared with us her paper entitled “Sustainable Urban Energy Planning: A Strategic Approach to Meeting Climate and Energy Goals.” Larisa’s paper focuses on the crucial role for sustainable energy planning creating the context and conditions for integrating and optimizing clean and efficient energy use within the urban built environment.

Utility Scale Renewable Energy items:

• For a window on the challenges and latest technologies for managing renewable energy on the grid, we’ve posted Cal-IRES Advisor Merwin Brown’s September 20, 2010 presentation New Electric Grid Technologies for Renewable Integration—The Need for Being Smarter for Transmission Summit West in San Francisco under Resources/USRE.
• As the November election approaches, we note that at least one California ballot measure has implications for USRE. Specifically, according to the state legislative analyst, Proposition 23 “suspends the implementation of AB 32 until the unemployment rate in California is 5.5 percent or less for four consecutive quarters. During the suspension period, state agencies are prohibited from proposing or adopting new regulations, or enforcing previously adopted regulations, that would implement AB 32. (Once AB 32 went back into effect, this measure could not suspend it again.)... Specifically, this proposition would likely suspend… (the) proposed ARB regulation that is intended to require privately and publicly owned utilities and others who sell electricity to obtain at least 33 percent of their supply from “renewable” sources, such as solar or wind power, by 2020. (The current requirement that 20 percent of the electricity obtained by privately owned utilities come from renewable sources by 2010 would not be suspended by this proposition.)” For the complete analysis, see http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/23/analysis.htm

Renewable Energy Secure Community items:

• A national conference entitled “Local Governments Rising to the Challenge: Providing Leadership through Community Transformation” will take place in Boulder CO November 10-12, 2010, including an entire day on adapting existing and developing new financial tools to break through the economic barrier impeding the necessary transformation of our communities to develop and implement low energy, water and transport use public infrastructure. Cal-IRES will participate in the conference. Gerry Braun will moderate a session on the second day entitled “Purpose and Need for New Financial Tools." For registration information, visit: www.appliedsolutionsconference.org
• Canby Net Zero Community Project Manager Dale Merrick shared the good news that their project was selected for Phase I funding [$2M] by the DOE Golden Field Office for a “cascaded" use of a geothermal resource for low-temperature power generation. View press release here: http://www.energy.gov/news/9498.htm