Tuesday brought very good news for California in terms of meeting its 2020 deadline of getting at least 1/3 of the state’s total energy from renewable sources like solar and wind. After a short period of debate, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved two San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) contracts to purchase more solar energy in the next 2-3 years. SDG&E is one of California’s three main investor owned utilities (IOU’s) and serves millions of residential and commercial energy customers throughout southern California, so more solar for this utility is sure to spread solar all over the region.

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has recently approved a pilot program that means huge savings for each individual property owner that installs a solar energy system and for the state as a whole. It’s called the Reverse Auction Mechanism (RAM) — a way to keep a single renewable energy developer from gaining a monopoly over renewable energy throughout the entire state.

One of the nice things about solar rebate programs — beyond the fact that they help reduce the cost of solar installation — is that they can provide a trove of interesting solar-related data. See, in order to ensure that you receive state- or utility-sponsored solar rebate funds, your solar installer will need to file [...]

One of the main arguments put forth by those opposed to the Ivanpah solar thermal project in California’s Mojave Desert is that the negative environmental impact of the plant would be too great. On August 3, a panel of the California Energy Commission (CEC) weighed in. The Ivanpah plant will use mirrors to reflect sunlight onto [...]

Earlier this month, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) release its 2010 assessment of the California Solar Initiative (CSI), a multi-year effort to increase the number of solar installations statewide. Among the report’s most interesting bits? The results from a phone survey CPUC conducted in 2009. Admittedly, this isn’t the most exhilarating chart. And details on [...]

Judging from number released a couple of weeks ago, San Jose can rightfully claim to be “the most” solar city in California. The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) on July 9 released an annual report on solar energy, detailing (among other things) the progress of the California Solar Initiative (CSI). A roadmap for installing 1,750 megawatts [...]

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last week issued its annual assessment of the California Solar Initiative, a $2.2 billion effort to install 1,940 megawatts (MW) of solar capacity across the state by 2016. On balance, the commission’s findings are positive: Three years into the state’s 10-year solar program, California is already 42 percent of [...]

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) made a clear statement yesterday: as far as California goes, the electric vehicle (EV) is the future of the automotive industry. And in order to prepare for that not so distant future, the CPUC has approved a roughly two-year pilot project for SDG&E [...]