Lights out on power grid measure
Senate leader delays vote on proposal to link system with other states until next year.
SACRAMENTO — The leader of the California Senate said Friday that she would delay a closely watched proposal to link oversight of the state’s vast electrical power grid to those in neighboring states.
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) released a terse statement saying the bill would not be brought up for a vote before the Legislature’s final adjournment at midnight.
“We will continue this important discussion next year,” Atkins said.
Assembly Bill 813 would have used the state’s grid operator, the California Independent System Operator, as the entity for other states to join. It sought to give the state’s utility companies permission to join the multi-state effort while handing a number of the details governing the transition to the California Energy Commission.
Gov. Jerry Brown championed the concept, and the decision handed the powerful governor a rare .
“Without a regional grid, renewable energy cannot expand in an integrated and efficient manner, nor can California continue its climate leadership,” Brown said in a statement. “It is imperative that a regional grid is created at the earliest possible date.”
AB 813 outlined a process to craft the new governance structure for the state grid operator that would not have taken place until 2021.
The potential for the Trump administration to interfere or block the effort led to a split among environmental groups. Critics argued the effort could link California to states with utilities that rely on coal or other fossil fuels, with disputes ultimately settled by federal regulators.
Supporters, though, said California’s recent success at creating wind and solar energy have resulted in times where excess electricity could have been sent out of state under a regional grid. Selling it to neighboring states at a cheap cost, those groups contend, could undercut higher costs for fossil fuel energy sources and thus use the market as a force for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from utilities.
AB 813 was one of the longest-discussed bills of the two-year legislative session, having been introduced in 2017. Brown’s negotiations with organized labor early in the process were crucial, as unions representing energy workers fretted over a possible loss of construction jobs as a regional grid could inspire more power plants being built elsewhere,. Some of those unions remained formally opposed to the bill through the final debate on Friday.