Woody Hastings 
Below are several selected upcoming committee hearings and several, but not all, of the key bills we are tracking. For a complete list of the roughly 16 bills we are currently tracking in 2020, click HERE. We do expect many more bills relating to Community Choice, electricity system resilience, microgrids, the climate crisis, and other … Read more
With a view of the future? This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit the ranch of Steve Heckeroth, architect, legendary clean energy pioneer, inventor, former contributing editor for Mother Earth News, and in this instance, creator of the Solectrac electric drive tractor. Steve’s ranch, and e-tractor manufacturing operation, is located along the Mendocino Coast … Read more
On December 20, 2018, my wife and I watched an interview of fifteen year-old Greta Thunberg and her TED talk about the climate crisis. In the moments afterward, we realized that we could no longer justify flying. The power of this young person’s voice is overwhelming. If you have not listened yet to Greta’s TED … Read more
On Tuesday, January 29, PG&E filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy law. The broad outline of the story, as most The Climate Center e-news readers are probably aware, is that as a result of utility equipment being pinpointed as a cause of many of the wildfires over the past two years, PG&Es’ liabilities outstrip … Read more
I was about ten or eleven years old in the early 1970s when I visited Tangier Island in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay with my family. It left quite an impression. We walked the neighborhood streets, visited the crab, oyster, clam and fishing docks, and stopped in to a few shops before finding a … Read more
Read on to see how you can help Last week I attended the 3rd annual meeting of the California Community Choice Association (CalCCA). With nineteen operational agencies now serving California, well over 200 people were in attendance. There were two major themes this year: The first was the rapid acceleration of Community Choice Energy in … Read more
Hazzahs, woots, and yahoos could be heard and seen reverberating around the clean energy community world throughout the afternoon on Tuesday, August 28 after the California State Assembly approved Senate Bill 100, the Kevin de León bill that sets a goal of 100% low or no carbon renewable energy by the year 2045. The bill … Read more
On August 1st the California Public Utilities Commission issued the long-awaited Proposed Decision* on the “exit fees” that Community Choice customers are charged for power that was purchased by private utilities on their behalf before they left (exited) to become Community Choice agency (CCA) customers. This is a pass-through charge because these fees are charged … Read more
CPUC adopts a favorably amended resolution, initially a big problem for emerging Community Choice agencies Clean energy advocates, local government elected officials, and Community Choice agencies (CCAs) scored a partial victory at a voting meeting of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco on February 8th. Inundated by “thousands of emails” according to … Read more
On January 11, the California Public Utilities Commission voted unanimously to close down the Diablo Canyon nuclear generating station in San Luis Obispo by 2025. Diablo is the last operational commercial nuclear power plant in California, so when it closes, California will have closed its chapter of nuclear power as an energy source. California is … Read more
