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California Renewable Energy Legislation / Progress

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But they use highways, which also degrade without traffic. So I would argue that passenger vehicles bear some cost to access these roadways regardless.

Yes, indeedy! However, as you correctly pointed out upthread, Ohmman, BEVs do not contribute nearly as much to the deterioration of the roadways as ICE vehicles because BEVs do not spew out noxious petrochemicals like motor oil, coolant and transmission fluid. The depositing of these fluids on the roads have to accelerate road decline.
 
What's more fair, a $100 flat tax, or a tax that varies based on the extent to which you use California roads?
If the state's going to measure mileage, they might as well go the whole nine yards and measure usage/wear as well.

Each stretch of road has expenditures required for it's upkeep. Some of those are related to age/weather, and those costs can be apportioned to vehicles based on how much time they spend on the roads, and others are associated with mechanical wear, which can be apportioned based on miles driven on that stretch and vehicle weight.

I'm OK with a mileage/usage based tax, but I don't want to continue to subsidize HDVs and/or subsidize users of low traffic roads that cost more per unit time and vehicle-mile to maintain.
 
Pacific Gas and Electric Company rates for Peak day Pricing!!! Does anyone in the WORLD have more expensive electricity than this???? At Peak day pricing a full charge is going to run an S85 about $65.00!!! :eek:

There are 9-15 Peak Day Pricing Event Days per year. On Event Days, a surcharge is added between 2-6pm.


PGE_PeakDayPricing_SummerEventDayRate_1460x1095.png
 
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Lloyd,
Just wow, whats the justification for them charging so much? Is the incremental cost actually that high to turn on the (gas?) plants that would generate the final few MW? Or is there simply no supply of electricity available so they need to curtail the use by charging that much?

RT
 
Lloyd,
Just wow, whats the justification for them charging so much? Is the incremental cost actually that high to turn on the (gas?) plants that would generate the final few MW? Or is there simply no supply of electricity available so they need to curtail the use by charging that much?

RT

Well, I suspect that they know that they have a HUGE liability exposure to the San Bruno gas explosion that is migrating through the courts as well as future repairs that may be mandated. CA PUC has approved EVERY rate increase almost without exception in order to keep the company whole. Diablo Canyon costs are being passed through as well.
 
Here in the cool, breezy San Joaquin Valley today's forecast is 111 degrees, and today and tomorrow are peak pricing days. You really think that we residents can shut down our HVAC use between 2 and 6 PM?

Only 15 days between June 1 and September 30 will be chosen as "Peak Pricing Days." Customers can opt-out any time. For the first year only, customers will be billed the lesser of the Peak Pricing Days charges or their regular TOU charges.

I wonder how many folks who live in cooler summer areas like the Central Coast and San Francisco really pay attention to their electricity usage. My sister-in-law has a mansion on the bluff at Shell Beach. She keeps the AC at 74, even with the ocean breeze blowing eastward in the late afternoons. My wife and I scratch our heads. We keep our thermostat in Fresno during the summer at 78 degrees, and we do not turn on the HVAC until the temperature is 83 inside the house. We generally run the air conditioner from late June to mid August. Most days we turn it on around 3 to 3:30 and shut it off around 7:30 or so.

Personally, I think that this is the sort of bribe that utilities need to use to wake their customers up as to their nonchalance about using or wasting electricity.
 
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PG&E has already forced small commercial accounts onto Peak Day Pricing. The first year was a "trial" where they would calculate the bill with and without Peak Day Pricing and refund the difference if it was lower on the old plan. As I recall, my 2,750SF office pays $1.20/kWh during Peak Day Event hours (2pm-6pm) in exchange for slightly lower rates during the rest of the year. We have little ability to shift usage. All I can do is set the AirCon to run continuously at a low temp from when I get to the office around 9am until 2pm then let it coast through until the inside temp gets to 80F.
 
Well, some bad news to report about my Azuga mileage tracking device. I received my second unit back on 8-1, since the first one wasn't working. The second unit is also not working. I called them up and it looks like other EV's using the device are also having problems. I believe they said they may be pushing out a firmware update (quite impressive actually, that they are OTA upgradeable) to fix the issue and they will let me know within 72 hours.

RT
 
July again tipped over the 2TWh mark for PV. June was slightly under:



I also just started doing some data entry related to seeing what the relationship between Solar PV as a percentage of overall renewables is, as well as the percentage of overall power use in the State. Looks like Solar PV is about 40% of total renewables, and about 10% of total power used. I'll add that to the graph going forward.

The other interesting thing is that CAISO doesn't (yet) track "battery storage" on their daily renewable update page. There is a program in effect to have the large utilities purchase some amount of stored power over time. If you dig a bit into the CAISO website, you can see that 0.22% of the renewable power comes from "storage batteries". So with 71,823MW of installed capacity, 25.05% renewables works out to 17,991MW, and 0.22% of that for batteries works out to 39MW. Thats the daily number that I really want to see updated over time, since that value could represent the "end game" so to speak. At least here in California, but not likely seasonally even here...

What I mean by "end game" is that if/when storage gets large enough, there will be days when the entire state could be entirely powered by renewable energy. That will make a nice headline, eh? :)

 
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So somehow a while back people got it in their head that the air in L.A. was bad. Smoggy even :rolleyes:

Perhaps due to pictures like this showing up in the newspapers:



Then a funny thing happened! They actually started to regulate the level of poisons that go into and come out of your internal combustion engine. And then things started to get better :)

Sometime when friends would come out and visit, I would let slip into the conversation that: "The air in Los Angeles is getting cleaner every year". This was typically met with funny looks, bartenders refusing to serve me any more drinks, or even people wanting to bet me on that. Turns out that I carried around a little folded up piece of paper in my wallet that showed basically the same thing that this InfoGraphic from the L.A. Times ran today along with a story. The story was about how the long trend toward cleaner air over time might be coming to an end.



Here is a link to the story for those interested:

SoCal hit with worst smog in years as hot, stagnant weather brings surge in hospital visits

Looks like maybe i'll need to keep that "bar bet" paper folded up in my pocket. But at least the bartenders won't be cutting off my drinks anymore. So thats a good thing, right? :p

All kidding aside, the people on the South Coast air quality board with their "industry friendly approach to pollution regulation" need to be reminded by the State what their job actually is.

Comments on the plan are due by 8-19, with the AQMD board voting on it in December. And then the ARB must also review it before sending it to the EPA. Surely there must be some adult supervision up that long chain...

AQMD plan would fight smog mainly through incentives, not rules
 
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RT, boy do I remember that sort of picture from my childhood! That pollution combined with the "late night and early morning low clouds" so common from May through early July would make for some horrible days.

I recall fondly those 8-12 pristine days each September through early November when the Santa Anas would blow all that pollution out over the Pacific and the skies were clear, clean and blue!

To me there is no better baseball stadium than Dodger Stadium when there is absolutely no smog in the air, with the view of the San Gabriel Mountains beyond the outfield. It sure beats the h-e-double hockey sticks out of AT&T park.
 
Well, some pretty historic legislation about to get passed as soon as the Governor can whip his pen out. California will be lowering it's CO2 emissions to 40% below 1990 levels by 2030. The old goal was 1990 levels by 2020, but that has already been achieved:

With new climate legislation, Gov. Brown gets even with the oil industry

State Assembly narrowly passes SB32 to extend climate change fight

Streetsblog has a good story too:
Assembly Passes Bills to Extend Greenhouse Gas Targets to 2030 | Streetsblog California

Last year some assembly Democrats were paying a bit too close attention to the oil industry, so this came up again this year per Governor Brown's persistence. Took some strong arming over the phone by President Obama's staff to get these guys to finally fall in line. Well Done!

It would be a shame for us to "drop the ball" here right before something very good happens in November WRT a better Federal direction on these matters.

And as always, the Governor has some nice words for those denying climate change and their ilk...

"There’s a lot of Trump acolytes walking the halls of the Capitol,” Brown told reporters, referring to oil lobbyists. And in another jab at the tweet-obsessed Trump, Brown asserted that legislating “is not like Twitter. You don’t do it with 140 characters."

"Oil has won the skirmish,” Brown conceded to reporters last summer. “But they’ve lost the bigger battle. Because I am more determined than ever….I have no intention of backing down."

Love the Laser like focus, both in Jerry and Elon. Cap and Trade still needs to be extended, but one battle at a time. :)

RT
 
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I have collected a bit of the historical renewable and total power data. Here is the relationship between the chart I have been showing which only shows SPV production, now graphing it along with total renewable production and total power consumed. Shows that there is a long way to go.

Note that I don't adjust for the number of days in the month, hence the February dip. I suppose I could show these all as "average per day" and smooth it out a bit.