Greening the grid in California

Since the 1970s, California has been a bellwether state in greening the electricity grid. Climate change has made these efforts more urgent with passage of California Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, which requires statewide GHG emissions to be reduced to the equivalent of 1990 levels by the year 2020. Meeting California's ambitious renewable portfolio standard goals requires moving power from where it can be generated renewably to where the load and demand require it. The state's experience with energy efficiency standards coupled with rate-payer funded demand-side management programs, renewable portfolio or energy standards that recognize all of the long-run avoided cost benefits of renewable generation, and strategic investments in environmentally conscious renewable power transmission is instructive for any effort to implement climate change policy by greening the grid.