With a diverse mix of clean, carbon-free generation resources, our portfolio mirrors our commitment to meeting California’s greenhouse gas emission limits and climate change goals.
Our greenhouse gas and carbon-free generation portfolio consists of both large and small hydro facilities, a large wind farm along the Columbia River in Washington, an agreement to purchase a portion of the output from the Rosamond Solar Site- the largest solar field in the nation, and an interest in a geothermal plant in Sonoma County.
Additionally, our policies towards customer adoption and installation of solar generation on their homes and properties facilitated a large number of system installations making us the first publicly owned utility in California to reach the state’s goal for net energy metering. Since reaching that goal, we’ve introduced new net metering rates and continue to see healthy adoption of solar generation by our customers and continued growth in solar installations.
We’re continually looking for green energy generation opportunities and evaluating new and emerging renewable power technologies to add to our already robust portfolio in order to meet the state’s ever-increasing demand for renewable energy.
The economics of renewable generation are continuing to evolve and technologies emerge rapidly making it necessary for us to constantly re-evaluate our green energy portfolio looking for new and economically viable options. We’re committed to meeting the state’s GHG and carbon-free generation goals but, in order to fully comply we must continue to search for new economically viable opportunities.
We acknowledge the public’s desire for utilities to be as environmentally sensitive as possible and the concept of generating power exclusively from renewable sources is an attractive one. However, we have to balance the demands of the state and the public’s desire for a fully renewable portfolio with the needs of our customers; and their ability to afford it.