The California Energy Commission, formally the Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, is the primary

energy policy Energy policy is the manner in which a given entity (often governmental) has decided to address issues of energy development including energy conversion, distribution and use as well as reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in order to contr ...

and

planning Planning is the process of thinking regarding the activities required to achieve a desired goal. Planning is based on foresight, the fundamental capacity for mental time travel. The evolution of forethought, the capacity to think ahead, is c ...

agency Agency may refer to: Organizations * Institution, governmental or others ** Advertising agency or marketing agency, a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients ** Employment agency, a business that ...

for California. Created in 1974 and headquartered in

Sacramento ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento ...

, the Commission'
core responsibilities
include: * Advancing State Energy Policy * Achieving Energy Efficiency * Investing in Energy Innovation * Developing Renewable Energy * Transforming Transportation * Overseeing Energy Infrastructure * Preparing for Energy Emergencies The Commission is a division of the California Natural Resources Agency, which is under the direction of Cabinet Secretary Wade Crowfoot. One of its prominent responsibilities is maintenance of the California Energy Code.

History

Charles Warren and

Al Alquist Alfred E. Alquist (August 2, 1908 – March 27, 2006) was a California politician. Biography Born in 1908 in Memphis, Tennessee, the son of a Swedish immigrant who worked for the railroads, Alquist was barely a teenager when he started carryi ...

, California

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, ...

s, co-authored the 1974 Warren–Alquist State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Act that created the Commission. The Act required that, prior to constructing or modifying an electric generating plant, the Commission was to certify the need for the plant and the suitability of the site of the plant. In 1976, the California legislature amended the Warren–Alquist Act to require the Commission, prior to any new nuclear generating plants being built, to certify that there is sufficient capacity to store spent fuel rods, and to establish a moratorium on the certification of any new nuclear generating plants until the federal government has approved and established a means for the disposal of high level nuclear waste. A legal challenge to this amendment by two electric utilities resulted in the

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point o ...

case '' Pacific Gas & Electric Co. v. State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission'', which upheld the amended Act. Dr. Arthur H Rosenfeld, was a member of the U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu's Energy Advisory Board and a Commissioner of the Energy Commission from 2000 to 2010. On 17 January 2001 a state of emergency declared during the

California electricity crisis California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

allowed the state to buy electricity for the financially strapped utility companies. The emergency authority allowed Davis to order the California Energy Commission to streamline the application process for new power plants. On 21 August 2006, the Governor signed

Senate Bill A bill is proposed legislation under consideration by a legislature. A bill does not become law until it is passed by the legislature as well as, in most cases, approved by the executive. Once a bill has been enacted into law, it is called an '' ...

SB 1, which directs the California Public Utilities Commission and the CEC to implement the California Solar Initiative program consistent with specific requirements and budget limits set forth in the legislation. In 2013, these efforts were tested in a near worst-case scenario of high temperatures, and reduced hydroelectric and nuclear power. Thanks to a combination of clean energy and conservation the state suffered no shortages.

Current activities

In 2007, the Commission set up relatively strict laws that forbid the signing of new energy supply contracts between utilities and coal-fired power plants. This was a major initiative to

stem Stem or STEM may refer to: Plant structures * Plant stem, a plant's aboveground axis, made of vascular tissue, off which leaves and flowers hang * Stipe (botany), a stalk to support some other structure * Stipe (mycology), the stem of a mushro ...

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and ...

by 2020. In 2013, the Commission embarked on a program to expand

Ethanol Ethanol (abbr. EtOH; also called ethyl alcohol, grain alcohol, drinking alcohol, or simply alcohol) is an organic compound. It is an alcohol with the chemical formula . Its formula can be also written as or (an ethyl group linked to a ...

E85 retail distribution throughout the state of California. This project will install E85 dispensing equipment at 19 existing gasoline stations to take advantage of the existing fueling infrastructure. The $1.35 Million contract was awarded to Pearson Fuels of

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

. The Commission expects the E85 vehicle fuel market in California eventually to be the largest in the United States, with approximately 55,000 new flex-fuel vehicles purchased in the state each year. In 2015, California legislation passed a bill (SB 350) that sets a goal of having 33% of electricity produced from renewable resources by 2020, and 50% by 2030. The California Energy Commission was given the task of monitoring and enforcing regulation on utility companies, to help them meet this goal. Since the passing of the bill, The Energy Commission has been tracking the changes made by the state overall, and providing updates on the progress. As of June 2017, California has increased its consumption of renewable electricity generation to 29%, and the commission states that California is on track to meet the goal of 50% by 2030, if not exceed it. In a Fortune news article, Tony Early, the CEO of PG&E, predicts that the usage of renewable energy will be closer to 70% at 2030, and so the challenge these experts predict we will face is the storage of this immense amount of renewable energy. The co-founder of Opower Alex Laskey describes the need to design a new grid system, and the need for policies to determine the rules and regulation of the market for innovated grid, as well as the "need to make energy efficiency and power grid plans simple enough for consumers to understand them.” Since the nature of energy generated from renewable resources such as wind and solar power do not produce the amount needed to meet peak demand times, the NREL suggests several

energy storage Energy storage is the capture of energy produced at one time for use at a later time to reduce imbalances between energy demand and energy production. A device that stores energy is generally called an accumulator or battery. Energy comes in ...

and regulation options that could increase the flexibility of renewable energy sources to meet the country's needs efficiently.

Organization

*Cabinet secretary **Energy commission ***Executive director ****Administrative Services Division – responsible for providing centralized accounting, personnel, and information technology services for the entire Commission ****Electrical Assessments Division – responsible for providing analytical assessments of California's electricity and natural gas systems and trends **** Energy efficiency and Renewables Division – provides assistance to businesses and individual on energy efficiency and conservation ****Energy Facilities Siting Division – responsible for licensing new power plant construction and regulating existing power plants ****Fuels and Transportation Division – responsible for analysing transportation fuels and energy needs ****Research and Development Division – provides public funding to support energy research and technology development

Projects

*Appliance efficiency program *

California Fuel Cell Partnership The California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) is a public-private partnership to promote hydrogen vehicles (including cars and buses) in California. It is notable as one of the first initiatives for that purpose undertaken in the United States. T ...

* California Solar Initiative
Energy Quest
web site *

PHEV Research Center The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institu ...

References

External links

* {{Authority control

Energy In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of ...