By Patricia Decker and Khalida Sarwari
Gov. Jerry Brown today signed into law a bill requiring California utilities to buy 33 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Brown signed the bill late this morning at the SunPower-Flextronics solar manufacturing plant in Milpitas, with U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu and state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, in attendance.
Simitian authored the legislation, which would also remove the cap on the amount of renewable energy that the California Public Utilities Commission can order a utility to buy or build.
The existing law, authored by Simitian and enacted in 2006, mandated that investor-owned utilities obtain 20 percent of their renewable resources by Dec. 31, 2010. Those standards were already the most ambitious in the country, according to the CPUC.
“Fossil fuels are finite and demand for energy is growing,” Simitian said in a statement today. “Fossil fuel prices are going to keep heading up. Renewable prices are headed down.”
The CPUC said it has already adopted 40 decisions to implement the existing standards and that retail sellers “have procured thousands of new renewable megawatts under the current structure.”
Pacific Gas & Electric served 17.7 percent of its 2010 load with renewable energy that was eligible under the existing standards, according to the CPUC. Collectively, the state’s large investor-owned utilities reported serving 17.9 percent of their electricity with eligible renewables in 2010, up from 15.4 percent the year before.
According to Simitian’s office, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and many of the state’s municipal utilities and unions representing construction and electrical workers supported the bill.
Brown said in a statement that the redefined standard “is really just a starting point — a floor, not a ceiling.”
The law, Brown said, will positively impact the state by stimulating investment in green technologies and creating tens of thousands of new jobs.
In his signing message, Brown said that the state would also benefit from improved local air quality, greater energy independence and reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
“Our state has enormous renewable potential,” Brown said. “I would like to see us pursue even more far-reaching targets … I think 40 percent, at reasonable cost, is well within our grasp in the near future.”