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4 min read CARB

WEEKEND NEWS CODEX: Assembly Bill 1777; Flexible Service Connection; Diablo Canyon

  • Bill Would Expand CARB Authority Over Indirect Emissions Sources: "California Assemblymember Robert Garcia introduced legislation to expand the state’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. AB 1777 would empower the California Air Resources Board to adopt regulations targeting emissions linked to 'indirect sources,' which are facilities and land uses that attract significant mobile emissions but have historically fallen outside direct regulatory control by state authorities." CALIFORNIA ENERGY JOURNAL
  • CAISO Requests Input on Large Load Considerations Report: "CAISO laid out these issues in a paper released Jan. 20, and is asking for written comments to be submitted by Feb. 25. Data center load in the CAISO grid is expected to increase by 1.8 GW by 2030 and 4.9 GW by 2040, according to a January forecast from the California Energy Commission." UTILITY DIVE
  • California's Energy Transition is Failing the Middle Class – and We Need to Admit It: "This isn’t a distant hypothetical. Seasonal fuel blend changes, refinery outages, rising summer demand, and grid strain are converging on a system with no margin left. When that happens, prices won’t just rise, they will surge. And when energy costs more, everything costs more." ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
  • California Has Abundant Solar Power – Here's How Factories Can Use It: "Some 36,000 manufacturing facilities operate in California, and many use large amounts of fossil gas to produce everything from cheese, olive oil, and canned fruit to cardboard, medicines, and plastic resins. Switching to electrified processes would significantly and immediately slash emissions from those factories, experts say. Yet industrial firms are generally hesitant to change — and sky-high power bills are a major reason why." CANARY MEDIA
  • CPUC Decision on "Limited Load Profiles" Offers Important Solution for Faster EV Charger Rollout in California: "A limited load profile is a schedule of how much power the system can draw from the grid at different times of the day or year, based upon when capacity is available. The decision establishes the use of limited load profiles as a temporary, 'bridging solution' that projects may utilize to get connected and start operating while waiting for the utility to complete grid upgrades. Historically, if the electric grid required upgrades to safely and reliably supply the maximum amount of power a project required, projects could not connect until the utility completed those upgrades—the construction of which can take years. The use of limited load profiles, a type of 'flexible service connection,' changes this scenario." INTERSTATE RENEWABLE ENERGY COUNCIL
  • Data Center Growth Has Helped PG&E Cut Rates 11% Since 2024, CEO Says: "The company’s total large load pipeline declined from 9.6 GW in September 2025 to 7.3 GW at the end of the year, but more projects are entering final engineering phases. PG&E maintains that it can reduce customers’ electric bills by about 1% for each gigawatt of new load on the system." UTILITY DIVE
  • Hard Landing – Motorists in Northern California Enter the Hurt Locker: "...decades of aggressive regulatory harassment have left California’s hydrocarbon fuels industry teetering on the edge of a collapse that will shake the state’s economy to its core. To summarize briefly, California is effectively two fuel islands, one clustered around San Francisco and the other around Los Angeles. Neither half of the state is connected by inbound oil or refined product pipelines to the outside world, and links between north and south are skimpy. Northern California in particular faces an urgent crisis, as one of its few remaining petroleum refineries is shutting down, leaving the region largely unable to provide for its own gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel. Everybody sees the problem coming, and few doubt it’s just a matter of time before calamity strikes." DOOMBERG
  • Is California Going to Shut Down This $16 + Billion Nuclear Plant in 2030? "Diablo Canyon provides clean, emission-free electricity 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It generates roughly 18 terawatt-hours annually—the equivalent of five Hoover Dams every year—without air pollution, carbon emissions, or reliance on weather. Retiring it early would almost certainly require replacement with fossil fuel generation, increasing emissions precisely when California is trying to reduce them." GREEN NUKE
  • Mitigating Hydro Risks in Western US Power Markets: "While hydro serves as the system backbone in the PNW, with prices and scarcity conditions strongly dependent on the water year, annual hydro variability in California makes it hard to rely on. CAISO can see enormous year-to-year variation in hydro generation, with cascading dams increasing the operational complexity. When it comes to price dynamics, solar drives low on-peak prices while gas and carbon pricing drive higher off-peak prices." ASCEND ANALYTICS
  • Octopus Energy Invests $1 Billion in California Clean Technology: "As part of its investment, Octopus will acquire a solar and battery project in California, which is expected to become fully operational by July. It will also invest in heat battery innovation to target industries that are hard to electrify, as well as two Californian carbon removal companies." PV MAGAZINE
  • PG&E Accelerating Home Electrification for Customers vis SPAN Edge: "SPAN Edge is an at-the-meter device that enables real-time load management and allows homes to add new electric appliances or electric vehicle charging without costly electric panel or service upgrades—addressing one of the most significant barriers to residential electrification. PG&E will deploy the new SPAN Edge devices coupled with next-generation metering infrastructure through its new PanelBoost program, a grid-edge innovation initiative designed to reduce upgrade costs for customers adopting electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction cooking, and other high efficiency electric technologies." PV MAGAZINE
  • When the Sun Sets, Batteries Rise – 24/7 Solar in California: "California’s aims in deploying their battery fleet are to blend together many energy resources, including soon to be integrated New Mexican and eventually offshore wind – to rid the state of fossil fuels. These batteries coupled with such a massive solar initiative are expediting the gaa to solar process." PV MAGAZINE

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