With 32 years in the solar business, Gary Gerber should be one
of the biggest fans of an initiative to increase California’s
production of renewable energy.
By SAMANTHA YOUNG
Associated Press
SACRAMENTO – With 32 years in the solar business, Gary Gerber should be one of the biggest fans of an initiative to increase California’s production of renewable energy.
But he and hundreds of other small business owners say an alternative energy initiative on the November ballot could force them out of business at a time California is struggling to boost its production of clean power.
Proposition 7, one of two alternative energy ballot measures, would require California utilities to generate half their electricity from windmills, solar systems, geothermal resources and other renewable sources by 2025.
If voters approve it, the initiative would solidify California’s position as having the country’s most aggressive renewable energy mandate.
“It does what all the climatologists are telling us we must do for life on this planet to survive,” said S. David Freeman, who once headed the agency that oversees California’s power grid. “It accelerates the pace to get carbon gases out of the atmosphere.”
Placed on the ballot by Arizona billionaire Peter Sperling, the measure has put Democrats, environmentalists and the renewable industry in the awkward position of fighting a measure that would advance their agendas.
They say the initiative would shut out small renewable projects, drive up electricity prices and make it easier for utilities to shirk their obligations.
California’s largest utilities have raised nearly $28 million to defeat it. The California Public Utilities Commission voted earlier this month to oppose it, saying it would create an “excessively rigid, and potentially unworkable structure” for future renewable energy development in the state.
The lesser known Proposition 10 would give Californians who buy alternative-fuel vehicles up to $50,000 through a $5 billion bond measure. It also would pay for research, development and production of renewable energy and alternative-fuel vehicle technologies.
One of the biggest disputes around Proposition 7 is what kind of clean energy projects would be counted toward the new state target.
Critics say the initiative would exclude all projects that produce less than 30 megawatts of electricity. That would include rooftop solar panels on stores, small hydroelectric dams, biomass plants that burn farm waste and other small projects that account for nearly two-thirds of California’s renewable energy sources.
If those projects don’t count toward the target, there will be no incentive for utilities to reward businesses and homeowners who want to generate their own power, said Gerber, founder of Sun Light & Power Co., which installs solar panels on commercial buildings in the San Francisco Bay area.
“The core of what I’m doing will go away,” Gerber said.
Initiative supporters say their intent is misunderstood. They argue that any clean power venture could be built and promise to clarify their intent before the state agencies that would be charged with carrying out the mandate.
They say their measure simply would fast-track permits for large projects and require utilities to buy green power if it’s comparable to the price of natural gas or other fossil fuels. Smaller projects would continue to be regulated by local governments, initiative chairman Jim Gonzalez said.
“It’s almost like saying (that) because I wrote about skyscrapers, I’m preventing houses from being built,” said Gonzalez, a former San Francisco supervisor. “It’s an illogical leap.”
Freeman, a former head of public utilities in Sacramento and Los Angeles, said his former employers, environmentalists and solar entrepreneurs have misread the initiative.
Which side is right is a matter of interpretation, according to a ruling by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny. In August, he refused to take sides on the issue when initiative backers asked him to eliminate their critics’ arguments from California’s ballot guide.
Both sides have raised plenty of money in an attempt to get their message to the public.
PG&E Corp., the parent company of Pacific Gas & Electric Co., and Edison International, whose subsidiaries include Southern California Edison Co., have contributed $27.6 million. Sempra Energy, parent of San Diego Gas & Electric, has chipped in $104,000.
A spokeswoman provided a statement characterizing the initiative as “misguided because it would upend the existing regulatory process, disrupt existing renewable development, significantly raise rates and threaten reliability.” Representatives at PG&E declined to comment to Associated Press and referred calls to the campaign.
Most of the money supporting the initiative has come from Sperling, a former California resident and vice chairman of Apollo Group, which operates the University of Phoenix. He has given $5.2 million to promote the initiative. Gonzalez, the campaign chairman, has given slightly more than $100,000. Sperling did not respond to repeated telephone calls seeking comment.
If adopted, the initiative would push California further into the forefront on renewable energy – bypassing its current mandate for 20 percent of its electricity to be renewable by 2010.
Accelerating the target could be a challenge, however. Private utilities already are struggling to meet their existing obligations.
A report issued in July by the Public Utilities Commission projects California will miss its goal by at least three years.
Although investor-owned utilities are generating more renewable power, their fossil fuel and natural gas production has risen more in the last five years. Sales of renewable energy have dropped from 14 percent to 12.7 percent.
Energy experts agree a higher renewable target is laudable, but some say California must first overcome the barriers hampering utilities from meeting the current mandate.
Transmission lines connecting solar power in the desert or geothermal power in the Salton Sea to California’s urban areas must be built, in some cases over environmentally sensitive habitat and through communities.
“The biggest challenge of renewable is not necessary getting renewables. It’s getting the transmission,” said Bill Slaton, a board member for the Sacramento Municipal Utilities District. “How does it make sense to mandate renewables when you haven’t solved the issues of transmission?”
The initiative would require municipal utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and SMUD to meet the targets. Municipal utilities are exempt from the current renewable mandate, although most have programs to increase their renewable generation.
Transmission challenges are among the reasons Democrats in the state Legislature rejected a push this year to raise the state’s renewable energy target to 33 percent by 2020, said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine, the outgoing chair of the Assembly Utilities Committee.
“Hope and good wishes alone isn’t going to get us there,” Levine said. “If we do it wrong, we could set it back years.”
