California’s Senate Bill 17 (SB17) hasn’t received much attention from the press, but it will soon now that it passed both houses of the state legislature on September 4th. The bill, presented by State Senator Alex Padilla, is commonly referred to as the “smart grid systems” bill and now sits on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk. SB17 is particularly important to scaling renewables and solar energy because, if it is signed into law, it will be the first official smart grid legislation to be implemented at the state level.
Provisions of the SB 17, in current form, call for the following actions to take place:
(1) each utility must develop and submit a smart grid deployment plan to the state Energy Commission by July 1, 2011;
(2) the Energy Commission, ISO, and other key stakeholders must identify requirements for a smart grid deployment plan and adopt standards and protocols to ensure functionality and interoperability;
(3) the impact of smart grid deployment on major state policies (such as renewable portfolio standards, state goals for greenhouse gas reductions, demand/response requirements, etc.) must be measured;
(4) annual reports beginning January 1, 2011 must be presented to the Governor and legislature on current state plans for deployment and the costs and benefits to ratepayers.
So what does this mean for solar power? As we’re seeing lately, utilities across the globe are making efforts to build solar PV plants as the technology becomes more cost competitive with traditional sources of energy. The adoption of SB 17 means that both utilities and residential owners of PV are poised to benefit. Utilities will be further encouraged to build out renewable power to meet California’s aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard. And as smart grid is implemented with advanced meters and applied software, the intermittency issue of solar power will start to recede into the background.
We also can’t forget about the benefits of planning. The requirement to submit smart grid proposals to the Energy Commission means that a centralized body will now be able to take a more cohesive look at individual utility plans of action. Such synthesis of data can help us learn from mistakes, identify best courses of action, and help other states move forward in smart grid implementation. This is an important piece of legislation for both the electricity grid and all sources of renewable power that are poised to benefit from smart grid growth, and we’ll be sure to keep our eyes on Governor Schwarzenegger’s desk to see if he agrees.
a