A revised version of the two-year-old California Energy Action Plan is ready for the state’s two principal energy agencies to vote on it next month, according to a brief report at the California Public Utilities Commission business meeting in San Francisco Thursday. The lead CPUC Commissioner heading the revision, Dian Grueneich, said the plan is to have the plan adopted by the California Energy Commission (CEC) Aug. 24 and the CPUC the following day.

The two principal areas of change in the revised action plan are the addition of sections on vehicular transportation and greenhouse gas emissions. Otherwise, it continues to push for renewables, and a diverse approach to both electricity and natural gas infrastructure and demand-side management programs, including an electricity generation “loading order” that gives first priority to conservation and second to renewable energy sources of electricity.

CPUC President Michael Peevey commended Grueneich and her equivalent at the CEC, Jackalayne Pfannenstiel, for “grappling with the revisions and carrying it forward.” Peevey said the revised version of the Action Plan was “expanded significantly” over the original document that was submitted to the governor and the legislature in late 2003.

“My worry was that with so much input from so many state agencies that it [the plan] would become unworkable and substantively compromised,” said Peevey, adding that “forutnately, that did not happen and we now have a very good document.”

He said the document seems to be very strongly supported by the energy commission.

In a separate matter CPUC Commissioner Susan Kennedy reported that she and veteran CEC Commissioner Arthur Rosenfeld, Ph.D., an internationally recognized building standards expert, have been asked by the mainland Chinese government to return in late summer to help the Chinese government institute some demand-side management programs as an offshoot of its massive power plant building effort. The pair had traveled to meet with Chinese officials last March.

Kennedy said the Chinese government has indicated it wants to sign memorandum of understanding (MOU) with both the CPUC and CEC “to help assist them with their programs.”

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