LISTSERV: Year-End Newsletter

We are pleased to announce that three Cal-IRES products are available for review. The report entitled California Renewable Energy Center: Vision and Development Metrics identifies a need for stronger and more robust support for California’s renewable energy deployment goals by the California Renewable Energy Center. A companion report California Renewable Energy Center: Scope and Structure identifies some specific current unmet needs related to high penetration renewable energy deployment and recommends a strategy to meet them. A third document, a working paper entitled Renewable Energy Futures Comparison – California vs. Rest of US, examines the differences and similarities between California’s renewable energy challenges and opportunities and those confronting the rest of the US. The report focuses on major renewable resource applications, i.e. wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy and bio-power. Its general conclusion is that making the best of California’s resources and opportunities for leadership will require efforts that complement and leverage generic research and technology advancement work of Federal programs. We welcome your comments on any of these items.

General Renewable Integration items:

• All of us involved in renewable energy have reason to inform ourselves about the incoming California administration’s outlook plan for clean energy and jobs. The plan strikes a balance between renewable energy and energy efficiency and emphasizes job creation. It was highlighted in the last stages of 2010 election campaign. For Cal-IRES it is good news, because it clearly underscores the importance of renewable energy integration and a “full menu” deployment strategy featuring a mix of new building, community and utility scale supply capacity. It is ambitious and will provide ample challenges for Cal-IRES and CREC in the coming years.http://www.jerrybrown.org/sites/default/files/6-15%20Clean_Energy%20Plan.pdf

Utility Scale Renewable Energy:

• The California Energy Commission (CEC) proceeded with a Research Needs for Utility-Scale Renewable Energy RFP 500-10-503 with proposals due on December 21. Cal-IRES has offered to be team members on a couple of proposals, based on discussions with our advisors. “Critical objectives of the solicitation are to: develop new applications of mixed (hybrid and/or integrated) renewable energy technologies; develop and demonstrate innovative cost-effective designs, technologies or combinations of technologies; develop mitigation approaches that result in reduced environmental impacts, especially from utility-scale solar installations; design, develop and demonstrate engineering and modeling approaches for the management of variable energy resources.”

Renewable Energy Secure Community:

• Sonoma Mountain Village is a community being developed by Codding Enterprises on more than 200 acres in Rohnert Park and will be the first in North America, and the fourth in the world, to be endorsed by One Planet Communities, which enables the entire community to live within a sensitive ecological footprint. The $1 billion sustainable, mixed-use community calls for 1,900 homes and will be the largest development in Sonoma County.

• Cal-IRES congratulates the Applied Solutions Network and the organizers of Applied Solutions’ Annual Conference in Boulder, Colorado last week. Entitled Local Governments Rising to the Challenge: Providing Leadership through Community Transformation, the conference brought together action-oriented communities and thought leaders in sustainability-related disciplines. Cal-IRES (Gerry Braun) moderated and contributed to a session entitled Purpose and Need for New Financial Tools that kicked off a day of thoughtful and well-informed discussion on the topic of Financial Innovation to Leverage Limited Resources. Cal-IRES advisors Jan McFarland and Larisa Dobriansky moderated and contributed to later sessions entitled Financial Policies and Regulation: Priorities for Local Governments and Local to National: The Net Impact of Financial Tools.