California’s drought boosts electricity bills
$ 2 billion added over 4 years as pollution grows, study says
By starving California’s hydroelectric dams of water, the state’s four- year drought has cost consumers an extra $ 2 billion in utility bills and pushed up greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 10 percent, a new study finds.
Researchers at the Pacific Institute think tank examined the drought’s impact on electricity generation in California over four years, ending last September.
As the Sierra snowpack shrank to record lows, the cheap electricity generated by dams in the foothills fell. Utilities had to buy more expensive replacement electricity from power plants burning natural gas. Californians’ monthly bills rose. So did emissions.
“When we generate less hydroelectricity, we have to do something else — and in California, that something else is burning more natural gas,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute and author of the study. “We’re replacing a relatively clean source of energy with fossil fuels.”
In the four years since it began, California’s historic drought has significantly changed how the state generates power.
Hydropower used to be a cornerstone of the state’s energy mix. From 1983 to 2013, dams produced on average 18 percent of the electricity generated in the state. But during the last “water year,” which ended in September, that share slipped to 7 percent, according to the report.
While California has been rapidly adding solar and wind facilities, the lack of steady and predictable hydropower forced utilities to buy more electricity from more traditional power plants, most fueled by natural gas.
Power plant emissions increased as a result. Plants produced not only more carbon dioxide, the main culprit behind global warming, but smog- causing pollutants as well.
California has been pushing hard
to cut its greenhouse gas emissions. And that effort produced real results — until the drought hit. The state’s emissions, tracked by the California Air Resources Board, had been sliding since 2008. But they rose again in 2012, as the drought cut hydropower production and faulty equipment closed the San Onofre nuclear power plant near San Diego.
California’s overall greenhouse gas emissions fell again in 2013, the most recent year for which data are available. But the drop was less than 1 percent, with emissions edging down from 460.82 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent to 459.28 million tons, according to the Air Resources Board.
A long dry spell in the state, stretching years into the future, would complicate California’s efforts to stop climate change, Gleick said.
“It’s going to be harder to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets than it would otherwise have been,” he said. “And ratepayers are going to pay more for electricity than they would have paid.”