SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), in collaboration with East Bay
Community Energy, is seeking innovative clean energy project proposals
to meet local transmission reliability needs. The energy company and the
public power supplier launched a Request for Offers (RFO) process on
Friday.
The competitive solicitation is the next step in advancing PG&E’s
Oakland Clean Energy Initiative. The initiative will result in a clean
energy alternative to the existing fossil-fuel power plant at 50 Martin
Luther King Jr. Way, which currently provides electric transmission-grid
reliability in Oakland.
The Oakland Clean Energy Initiative will proactively deploy clean energy
resources to provide transmission-grid reliability. It marks the first
joint solicitation between a utility and a community choice aggregator,
an entity through which cities or counties buy electricity for area
residents and businesses.
“We look forward to beginning a competitive market solicitation process
in coordination with East Bay Community Energy,” said Roy Kuga, vice
president of Grid Integration and Innovation for PG&E. “We are fortunate
to serve an area with an abundance of energy and technology innovators,
and this is a terrific opportunity to find clean energy resources that
both improve our grid’s resilience and help California meet its climate
goals.”
PG&E will procure resources to meet transmission reliability needs, and
East Bay Community Energy will procure the associated capacity, energy
and renewable energy credits. Depending on the selected portfolio, the
solicitation could result in 20 to 45 megawatts of clean energy
resources. The combined PG&E and East Bay Community Energy solicitation
will competitively source a portfolio of local clean resources such as
renewable generation, energy storage and energy efficiency, and will
support local jobs.
Offers will be accepted until June 15. PG&E will hold an informational
webinar on May 9 for vendors interested in submitting proposals through
the request-for-offers process.
After the market solicitation closes, PG&E and East Bay Community Energy
will independently review bids and develop preferred portfolios of
resources. PG&E expects to submit its portfolio to the California Public
Utilities Commission for review and approval by early 2019.
The California Independent System Operator (ISO) has a Reliability Must
Run contract with the existing power plant’s owner, Dynegy, to purchase
electricity during peak periods. The ISO previously identified the
40-year-old power plant’s retirement as a risk to transmission
reliability.
PG&E and the ISO collaborated to study how a cost-effective portfolio of
distributed clean energy resources could become part of an alternative
to the plant. The Oakland Clean Energy Initiative was the result of
those studies. The system operator’s board approved the initiative on
March 22 as a lower-cost alternative to new transmission lines or a new
fossil-fuel plant.
“This is a first-of-its-kind collaboration to demonstrate that clean and
local energy sources can be used effectively to replace dirty fossil
fuel generation in our community while ensuring that the lights stay on
for our residents and businesses,” said Dan Kalb, EBCE Vice-Chair and
Oakland City Councilmember. “We are excited to be part of the solution
to climate change while providing direct benefits to the people living
in our communities.”
PG&E engaged a diverse group of stakeholders during development of the
Oakland Clean Energy Initiative proposal including the City of Oakland;
the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers Local 1245; the Port
of Oakland; environmental groups such as Environmental Defense Fund,
West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and Natural Resources
Defense Council; and businesses that neighbor the site.
More information about the request for offers can be found at www.pge.com/rfo.
About PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E
Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas
and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco,
with more than 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the
nation’s cleanest energy to nearly 16 million people in Northern and
Central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/
and www.pge.com/en/about/newsroom/index.page.
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Source: Pacific Gas and Electric Company