San Francisco-based utility Pacific Gas & Electric (NYSE:PCG) says new innovation, including technologies such as compressed air, could help it meet California's renewable portfolio standard (RPS) of 20 percent of its electric portfolio to come from renewables in 2010.
PG&E’s Fong Wan, senior vice president, energy procurement, said at this week's Dow Jones Alternative Energy Innovations conference in Redwood City, Calif., that the company is at 14 percent, but still needs to add 16,000 gigawatts to meet the goal.
He also said California carries about a 15 to 20 percent reserve margin—to moderate the supply load throughout the day and ensure technology from renewables is intermittent rather than dispatchable.
RPSes exist in many U.S. states and the District of Columbia and require a specified amount of total power generation to be bought by utilities from renewable sources. The quantity of power that needs to be produced from renewable sources and the date by which that needs to occur varies from state to state (see Electric-bill increases go hand in hand with RPS targets).
The California utility has said before it expects to meet its RPS target, but some renewable sources may not come online by the 2010 deadline (see PG&E to meet renewable energy requirements - sort of). For example, Western Geopower, a geothermal plant operator, terminated its contract to sell 25.5 megawatts of geothermal power to the utility.
PG&E has been focused on building up its hydro facilities, pump storage, and clean gas burning plants, Wan said. With pump storage, water is pumped to an upper lake in the middle of the night, and then released to a lower lake in the middle of the day in a controlled manner.
The utility is also working to bring in new technologies to meet intermittencies of solar and wind.
“Storage is one of the most important changes that we are going to need in the next coming decade,” he said.
PG&E is exploring more than 2,000 MW of new storage, but what Wan is most excited about is compressed air. PG&E is currently exploring a U.S. Department of Energy grant to squeeze air underground. High pressure air could then be released to generate electricity during the middle of the day.
Companies working in the space include Boston-based General Compression, which is working to compress and store air to power generators when the wind is still (see General Compression aims to double wind farm profits).
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