Pacific Gas & Electric”s effort to get $6 million in public money for the WaveConnect projects off Fort Bragg and Eureka has turned into a showdown over whether wave energy research should be public information.
The giant utility is fighting to keep a lid on the information it gathers in Fort Bragg about wave energy — and against efforts to make its own shareholders invest.
On the other side, the Independent Energy Producers Association (IEPA) and the Office of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA) say the public should not pay for research to develop private intellectual property.
They have asked the California Public Utilities Commission to sever the wave energy study from a bunch of solar and wind energy projects sought by PG&E and San Diego Electric.
Under the proposed Emerging Renewable Resource Investment Plan (ERRP), PG&E would get $30 million and San Diego Electric $15 million over a two-year period to hire outside firms to facilitate development of new renewable resources and technologies.
The Independent Energy Producers and Office of Ratepayer Advocates generally support the rest of the efforts by the two utilities to fast track alternative energy research, although they want both to chip in their own money.
A decision on the Emerging Renewable Resource Investment Plan was scheduled for Dec. 21, but has apparently been delayed over the Wave Connect matter.
The crux of the dispute is that wave energy technology is so new that the effort to build a wave farm off Fort Bragg represents merely an experiment, not development of alternative energy.
“IEPA argues that PG&E”s WaveConnect Project should be severed from the application and be required to seek a certificate of public convenience and necessity after competing successfully in a competitive solicitation for wave energy projects, and that ratepayer funding of wave energy development costs should be denied,” states a PUC filing by the Office of Ratepayer Advocates.
It is unclear what would happen to WaveConnect if the PUC sides with PG&E foes in the proceeding and yanks the wave energy funding from the ERRP.
PG&E”s spokesman, Ian Caliendo was researching that issue at presstime.
PG&E”s efforts to keep documents secret, rather than public, seemed to contradict repeated statements made by utility spokesmen at meetings in Fort Bragg. They have promised a process to be distinguished by its transparency.
PUC documents
Public documents recently provided to the newspaper by the California Public Utilities Commission reveal extensive details about the Fort Bragg proposal that were never brought forward in public forums.
When publicly asked by this reporter at the North Coast Fisherman”s Association Forum on Sept. 27 whether PG&E would use any of its own money in addition to the $6 million from the Public Utilities Commission, company representatives said that wasn”t how the process worked.
John Newman from PG&E”s legislative office explained the utility operates by getting its funding from the California Public Utilities Commission.
However, that was a key issue in the ongoing negotiations for PG&E and San Diego Electric to get their $45 million. That process began in July and was well under way before that meeting was held in Fort Bragg.
Because PG&E and San Diego Electric are “monopolies” in much of their service areas, the companies must engage in such negotiations before the Public Utilities Commission awards public funding.
In legal proceedings before the California Public Utilities Commission, both the Office of Ratepayer Advocates and the Independent Energy Producers Association had demanded that PG&E invest some of its stockholders” money into the project.
One of the Office of Ratepayer Advocates” conditions for supporting the Emerging Renewable Resource Investment Plan in the opening brief is that PG&E and San Diego Electric shareholders contribute to their respective Emerging Renewable Resource Investment Plan budgets. This condition serves the same purpose as the Independent Energy Producers Association”s position that “PG&E”s … shareholders should be at risk for portions of the study to the same extent that the shareholders or the owners of (independent energy firms) are at risk for their projects,” the Public Utilities Commission filings state.
“The IEPA recommends that PG&E … bear the costs of some of the ERRP projects just as the owners of independent power projects bear their costs, and that any information developed through the ERRP be made publicly available to the market,” the Office of Ratepayer Advocates filing states.
In the Public Utilities Commission filings, PG&E responds to the official criticism in the same vein as at the public meetings, saying the Ratepayer Advocates misunderstand the process.
“DRA would require shareholders to contribute 1/3 of ERRP funds as a condition of ERRP approval, based on the supposition that this would better align ERRP investment with the allocation of gain when ERRP projects are sold. This recommendation misinterprets the rules for gain on sale and lacks any legal, factual, or policy basis. Accordingly, both of DRA”s recommendations should be denied,” PG&E”s filing states.
When this reporter asked Project Manager Uday Mathur if feasibility studies would be made public, the answer was they would check into that, but this reporter never heard any more about it.
The exchange over the studies was in fact featured in an article by an IndyMedia reporter which covered the event as an example of how the giant utility was being less than forthright.
Those studies are at the heart of the current PUC debate.
On Oct. 30,the Energy Producers Association intervened in the process with a late motion asking that the Public Utilities Commission not fund PG&E”s efforts unless all studies done with the public money would be made available to the public. (The obvious intent of the Independent Energy Producers Association is to use the information in the marketplace to compete with PG&E, not share it with the general public.)
PG&E was arguing that many documents be kept from the public eye.
“In pursuing ERRP projects, parties who sponsor technologies will own or have rights to use intellectual property (IP) incorporated in and an integral part of those technologies. If such parties are required to share the ownership of such original IP, either with ratepayers or as some have suggested with the public at large as a condition precedent to acceptance as a (ERRP) project, it is highly unlikely that the promoters/owners of the technologies (the state funded renewable energy program) seeks to evaluate and bring to market would participate,” PG&E”s PUC filing states.
This claim, however, seemed to contradict a key argument by PG&E to get funding — that it would make renewable energy cheaper for everyone, not just their ratepayers, as the Independent Energy Producers point out.
“If the goal of the ERRP is to stimulate increasing supplies of renewable energy, then it follows that any information developed as part of the ERRP and the projects it supports should be made public, so that developers of renewable projects can incorporate that information in their planning and in their projects, resulting in better and more economically competitive renewable resources that will help California meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard (“RPS”) and greenhouse gas goals,” the IEPA filing states.
PG&E countered by saying it is the opponents who are hurting wave energy, by trying to block public funding for private research.
“IEPA”s opposition to PG&E”s proposal to demonstrate the feasibility of tapping into the ocean wave energy resource is shortsighted and potentially harmful in the sense that utilities would be prevented from helping to accelerate development of another promising renewable resource,” PG&E”s PUC filing states.
“IEPA”s proposal to disseminate trade secrets, even if the intellectual property of third parties is revealed, is anathema to the utility-developer relationship and would stall the ERRP program before it began. IEPA”s recommendations should be rejected.”
PG&E”s argument forgets that the public is paying the bill, the Independent Energy Producers argue.
“While some of PG&E”s contractors may want to protect proprietary processes, the information developed by the ERRP should be publicly available. PG&E”s perplexing suggestion that it would withhold the information developed through the ERRP raises the question of what is the true goal of the ERRP, in PG&E”s view — a program to develop and promote new renewable technologies (as portrayed in the application) or a new profit center with ratepayers as involuntary venture capitalists,” the PUC filing states.
PG&E doesn”t deny that wave energy is in its infancy, stating that the technology is 20 years behind wind energy. But the PUC filing by the utility presents information to show its potential and that it will be needed in a world desperate for clean power.
With 37 percent of the world”s population living within 60 miles of an ocean, the world”s oceans have the potential to produce 2 terawatts of power, compared to the worldwide currently installed electric capacity of 3.5 terawatts, a Carbon Institute study shows.
California has over 1,200 kilometers of coastline, with Northern California featuring some of the best wave energy potential in the world. That energy could produce 37,000 megawatts, of which an upper limit of about 20 percent could be converted into electricity, PG&E”s filing states.
“This is sufficient for about 23 percent of California”s current electricity consumption. However, economics, environmental impacts, land-use and grid interconnection constraints will likely impose further limits to how much of the resource can be extracted,” the filing states.
“Although technology is still at a relatively immature stage, economic projections indicate that wave power could become cost-competitive over the long-term.”
The Public Utilities Commission filings also show that PG&E has committed to the California Environmental Quality Act process, which has been an unanswered question at some meetings.
“PG&E”s WaveConnect project will likely require discretionary decision-making by state or local agencies, which would trigger a need for environmental review under CEQA. PG&E has already filed applications for preliminary permits with FERC and anticipates working with state and local agencies on CEQA compliance, as required,” the PG&E PUC filing states.
For more information about the PUC filings, go to http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/Published/proceedings/A0707015.htm
