NEWS CODEX: At-Berth Regulation; Senate Bill 1221 PD; Gridmatic Study
- California's Bad Energy Policy is the Real Threat to the AI Boom: "California wants to lead the AI revolution. Companies are racing to build data centers here, drawn by the talent, the capital, and the technology sector that has defined the state’s economy for a generation. California utilities are already fielding service requests totaling 18.7 gigawatts of new capacity. There is one problem Sacramento has been slow to confront: its energy supply is not adequate to sustain the innovation it claims to champion. The culprit is not the data centers. It is California’s own energy policy." PACIFIC RESEARCH INSTITUTE
- California's Choice – Cleaner Air for Schools or Money for Utilities: "The funds at stake are part of the California Schools Healthy Air, Plumbing, and Efficiency program, or CalSHAPE, which funds schools’ HVAC and plumbing repairs and upgrades. The state required its three big utilities — Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and San Diego Gas & Electric — to fill the initiative’s coffers with about $1 billion in fees collected from customers between 2020 and 2023." CANARY MEDIA
- California's Community Choice Aggregators are Leading the Way on Energy Storage: "Three recent announcements by Community Choice Aggregators in California are shining a spotlight on the varying ways the municipal energy groups are leading the charge on integrating batteries into California’s electricity supply." PV MAGAZINE
- Cleaning Up California's Ports – the At-Berth Regulation, Tanker Terminal Compliance, and the Fuel Supply Risks Nobody is Talking About: "...California has set a compliance deadline for a technology that does not yet exist in a form that can safely operate on petroleum tankers. When the compliance deadline arrives, CARB will face a choice it has not publicly acknowledged: enforce the regulation and risk constraining the fuel supply, or back down and undermine the regulation’s credibility. Neither outcome serves the port communities the rule was designed to protect." STILLWATER ASSOCIATES
- CPUC Proposed Decision Risks Derailing Gas Transition: "California passed a promising Neighborhood Decarbonization Program. The CPUC’s plan for implementing SB 1221 sets it up to fail." LEGAL PLANET
- Gridmatic Study Reveals Huge Gap in California Grid-Scale Battery Performance: "Unlike ERCOT, CAISO anonymizes public market data, masking resource identities and obscuring asset-level activity. A report by Gridmatic reveals that static bidding strategies and operational execution create a wide gap in performance across the state’s utility-scale battery energy storage assets." PV MAGAZINE
- More Than 120 Candidates Seek Spot on ROWE Board: "Under California Assembly Bill 825, which implements the work of Pathways, CAISO plans to transfer governance of its Western Energy Imbalance Market and Extended Day-Ahead Market to ROWE in 2028. ROWE plans to expand its board to seven members after the organization has governance authority." RTO INSIDER
- New BPA Chief Promises "More to Say" On Day-Ahead Market Decision: "[Travis] Kavulla’s past expressions that support a West-wide organized electricity market and his previous role on the WEM Governing Body have fueled speculation among industry participants that he may revisit BPA’s May 2025 decision to join Markets+ rather than CAISO’s Extended Day-Ahead Market. While Kavulla acknowledged the debate over Western markets during his speech at the ceremony, he unsurprisingly offered little concrete about his current thinking on the market direction, instead emphasizing the physical challenges facing the Northwest grid." RTO INSIDER
- PG&E's Bidirectional Charging Programs Seek to Answer "Million Dollar Question" About Lowering Customer Costs: "A recent study by utility Pacific Gas & Electric found that demand flexibility–shifting electric use to times when demand is low and energy is less expensive– could save about $1.8 billion in infrastructure costs by 2040." MICROGRID KNOWLEDGE
- Powering Down Prices: "While no single solution exists to California’s electricity affordability crisis, the need to deploy capital investment to build out the infrastructure necessary to meet a growing demand for power is not a new condition. For over a century, regulators have worked to balance the competing interests of safe, reliable utility service at just and reasonable rates. Foundational principles of cost-of-service ratemaking that govern electric utilities and their regulators offer solutions that can push for better cost controls while maintaining safe and reliable electric service." UC BERKELEY LAW
- UC Berkeley Report Targets IOU Earnings: "Its main argument: high investor-owned utility rates are eroding the economic case for electrification at the precise moment California needs customers to switch. One in five IOU customers fell behind on bills in 2025 by an average of $639. California industrial rates run 2.5 to 3 times higher than neighboring states." CALIFORNIA REGULATORY INTELLIGENCE
UC Berkeley Report Targets IOU Earnings
High investor-owned utility rates are eroding the economic case for electrification at the precise moment California needs customers to switch.
MC
- The Case for Utility Wildfire Suppression: "In California, PG&E and Southern California Edison together plan to spend more than $23 billion on wildfire prevention through 2025 — a 26 percent increase over their prior three-year cycle. In Oregon, PacifiCorp will invest $875 million over the next three years, while Hawaiian Electric plans to spend $450 million over a similar period." LATITUDE MEDIA