Small-scale solar developers struggle to connect

Jan 29 - North County Times, Calif.

A wave of applications from small-scale, solar-electric developers clogged the application pipeline for connecting to the electric grid, slowing the process of implementing renewable power in California, according to a report released earlier this week by state regulators said.

Under an executive order from former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state's utilities must purchase 33 percent of their power from renewable sources such as solar, wind, or geothermal by 2030. Building transmission lines to connect large-scale renewable power developments to the electric grid has proved expensive and politically challenging.

The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates the utilities, created incentives for developers to build smaller plants, closer to where the power will be used. But the application process for grid connections managed by the utilities was never designed to handle large numbers of applications, and it has been overwhelmed, according to a report from the commission.

"The increase in market interest over the past two years has overwhelmed the existing interconnection processes, leading to an interconnection application and study bottleneck." the report said.

To meet the initiative's goals, utilities focused on large-scale solar projects: Large-scale developers could hold costs down and buy supplies in bulk.

"A lot of these developers are in renewable-rich but remote areas," said Stephanie McCorkle, a spokeswoman for the California Independent System Operator, which manages high-voltage transmission lines.

In December, San Diego Gas & Electric Co. started building the Sunrise Powerlink, a 400-kilovolt line designed to link renewable projects planned for Imperial County into San Diego County's electric grid. But even though the line was requested by the ISO, moving the project through bureaucratic and legal hurdles took four years, and the project won't be completed until next year.

To avoid these challenges, Southern California Edison introduced a program to encourage development of renewable power plants that generate 20 megawatts of power or less, and SDG&E applied to start a similar program (one megawatt powers 650 typical homes). These smaller projects can be located within metro areas, and can be tied directly into lower-voltage distribution lines managed by utilities themselves.

But the smaller projects must still go through federal and state application processes before they can be linked up, and it's these applications that are overwhelming regulators. The commission's report didn't include specific figures, but a chart showed a jump in interconnection requests by small generators to about 70 in spring 2009 and a peak of about 190 applications in spring 2010.

The PUC report said the applications meant the utilities "are backlogged in processing interconnection applications and interconnection studies are significantly delayed."

But a commission spokesman sounded a less concerned note.

"This is not an impediment to the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard) goals overall, just this segment of the market, which will be able to deliver less toward the total if the process isn't speeded up," said Chris Chow, a spokesman for the PUC.

Other notes from the report:

-- The state is on track to meet its goal of 33 percent renewables by 2030, though some of those contracts are considered at risk of never being built, according to the PUC.

-- During the fall, Southern California Edison didn't apply for any new renewable projects, and SDG&E applied for one that would provide 7.5 megawatts of solar power.

-- The commission approved 47 new renewable power agreements in 2010, the most since the program started in 2002.

-- Utilities brought 653 megawatts of renewable power on line in 2010, the most since the program started. The state's total renewable power is now 1,702 megawatts.

Call staff writer Eric Wolff at 760-740-5412.

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