A victory on energy storage…so what is that and how is it an EJ issue?

Here’s how it all adds up:

More capacity to store clean energy that is produced →

California can produce more clean energy →

We need less fossil fuels →

We replace dirty power plants and refineries with renewable energy production →

We clean up frontline communities across California and have less global warming!!

In short, we can’t get off dirty fossil fuels and transition to 100% clean energy without more capacity to store renewable energy.

CEJA has been working for months at the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) to ensure it requires companies and the state to expand how much renewable energy they can store and distribute. The PUC is the regulatory agency responsible for most major decisions about how California produces, stores and distributes energy.

Today, the PUC made a final ruling that will help build more clean energy storage throughout the state, after months of hard work by CEJA, Communities for a Better Environment, Environmental Health Coalition, and Golden Gate Environmental Justice Law Clinic. Check out Strela’s quote below and read more about the decision here.

As Strela Cervas, our Co-Coordinator says:

“The California Environmental Justice Alliance participated in this proceeding on behalf of low income communities and communities of color overburdened by pollution, in particular from power plants. California does not need any new gas-fired power plants. This decision announces the feasibility of other alternatives; will undoubtedly accelerate the State’s progress towards a just, sustainable energy future; and facilitates other statewide climate change policies that protect low-income communities and communities of color.”

For those deep energy nerds out there, here is the link to the PUC decision.

State utilities commission amps up energy storage technology

San Francisco, CA–(ENEWSPF)–October 17, 2013. Today the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) finalized a groundbreaking decision to build innovative high-tech energy storage systems that will lead California toward a future of clean, renewable energy and away from dependence on fossil fuels.

The decision will require power companies to expand their capacity to store energy, improving storage and delivery of renewable energy resources, reducing the need for gas-fired power plants, cutting climate change pollution, and making California’s electrical grid more reliable. In the decision, the state’s investor-owned utilities must begin buying a combined 200 megawatts of energy storage technology by 2014 and reaching 1.3 gigawatts (1,325 megawatts) by the end of 2020.