California’s ambitious 33%-by-2020 renewable energy goal officially was passed by the legislature and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown last Tuesday, the latest attempt to codify the goal in state law. Backers of the measure (SB 2X), which passed the Assembly by a 59-19 vote, said Brown is expected to sign it into law.

At least one major energy utility, San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E), remained opposed to the measure, but a PG&E official told NGI that the giant combination utility will not urge Brown to veto the bill.

Instead, PG&E sent a letter to the governor describing its interest in “working on a clean-up bill” to address certain issues. In the letter Edward Bedwell, PG&E vice president for government relations, said the utility “joined many others in raising multiple concerns [about SB 2X] related to customer costs, the transition to the new program, and uncertainty concerning banking rules [for renewable buying above the goals].”

Bedwell said the current bill could have “many unintended consequences,” such as creating what he called a “seller’s market” for renewable power supplies that could create undue costs for California’s retail power customers. PG&E thinks the state’s new law needs to be modified to incorporate what Bedwell called “lessons learned from the past” in regard to transitioning to the higher goal.

A clean energy/environmental lobbying group in Sacramento, Environment California, hailed the passage of SB 2X as “one of the biggest environmental victories of the year.” The group’s advocate, Bernadette Del Chiaro, called the 2020 renewable portfolio standard (RPS) bill “a huge clean energy victory.”

“[Renewable] electricity has to be produced (a) in the state or near the border or delivered to an in-state location, and/or (b) [its] first point of interconnection has to be to the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, be built after 2005, and can’t contribute to environmental degradation within California,” said Del Chiaro.

PG&E objects to such restrictions on the amount of out-of-state renewable projects that could count toward the 2020 RPS goal.

The legislature passed similar measures two years ago, but those were vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The 33% RPS was adopted in the past year by the California Air Resources Board as part of its ongoing implementation of the state’s climate change mitigation law (AB 32).

©Copyright 2011Intelligence Press Inc. All rights reserved. The preceding news reportmay not be republished or redistributed, in whole or in part, in anyform, without prior written consent of Intelligence Press, Inc.