The California Energy Commission updated its 2020-2030 forecast Monday to account for the slowdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic, increased electric-vehicle charging and a projected doubling of battery storage, among other factors.
Commissioners and staff members also paid tribute to Vice Chair Janea Scott, who is leaving for a post in the Biden administration.
In the annual energy forecast update, the anticipated amount of battery storage will double from the previous forecast of 1,300 MW to 2,600 MW by 2030, said Nick Fugate of the CEC’s Energy Assessments Division.
“Battery storage adoption is occurring rapidly,” Fugate said. “We see this just in examining the interconnection data.”
EVs are expected to proliferate and contribute to load growth over the next decade, he said. However, the economic impacts of COVID 19 have been “disrupting sales across all vehicle classes, EVs included,” he said.
The forecast assumes a recovery from those effects over time. It projects there will be 3.3 million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on the road by 2030, mostly battery-powered.
The updated forecast did not account for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order in September that all new passenger cars and trucks sold in California must be ZEVs by 2035, but the next forecast will include it, Fugate said. (See Can California Meet Its EV Mandates?)
EV charging will produce 14,000 GWh of new demand by 2030 under the current forecast, he said.
Lower growth in population, household formation, employment and income will reduce demand over the next three years, as will decreased commercial and industrial use of electricity, he said.
Forecasting is one of the CEC’s core responsibilities and lays the groundwork for procurement and planning at the California Public Utilities Commission and CAISO. The rolling blackouts in mid-August and close calls over Labor Day weekend caused the CEC to re-examine its forecasts as part of a root-cause analysis of the blackouts requested by Newsom.
Commissioner Andrew McAllister said the forecast would not have changed significantly because of the severe heat waves that partly caused the summer shortfalls.
“It really held up well,” McAllister said. The CEC, CPUC and CAISO remain focused on ensuring reliability this summer and beyond, he noted. (See New CAISO CEO Vows Urgency on Resource Adequacy.)
Scott Leaving
Commissioners and staff spent nearly 90 minutes at the beginning of Monday’s business meeting praising Scott, who is set to become counselor to President Biden’s nominee for Interior Secretary, Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.). Monday’s meeting was Scott’s last.
Scott and most of her fellow commissioners have served together for the last eight years, working as a team to pursue the state’s clean energy goals, Chair David Hochschild said.
“It’s a bittersweet day for us because it’s really hard to lose you,” Hochschild told Scott. “You have been at the core of the commission and all that we’ve done together,” including allocating billions of dollars for cutting-edge energy research and development projects, he said. Scott led the CEC’s research and development portfolio, which includes the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC). “Everything you’ve touched, you’ve made better,” he said.
Scott, a well known figure in energy circles, served as deputy counselor for renewable energy at the Interior Department from 2009 to 2013 under the Obama administration.
“Her leadership was noticed … and she was recruited by Gov. Jerry Brown and his team to come to California,” Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot said. Few people have been “as consequential to the state’s energy vision over the last decade” as Scott, he said.
Her departure means Newsom now has vacancies to fill on the CAISO Board of Governors, the CPUC and the CEC — the three entities largely responsible for energy in California. (See CPUC’s Randolph Named CARB Chair.)