Tom,
PG&E is in good shape near term supply and infrastructure (i.e. grid) wise from what I can tell. I haven’t followed up with an ISO request that we not let a Nat gas plant get shuttered in the northern central valley as we need it in about 2 years for grid stability: for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. Long term you need to ask someone a lot more familiar with those really detailed slides then me as far as the lights on side of things. As to costs we already know they have to go up- as noted in the Future of Nat Gas Post: PV cost more (a lot more) and we are adding it to meet the RE standard. Someone has to pay the bill. I asked Joy for help on trying to figure out how to allocate those costs in the moral judgment thread………
As necessity is the mother of many an invention we are going to get to see how well DR is at reducing peak load down in the San Diego area (as the nuc plant is off line until they figure out what is going on with some corrosion). With the summer approaching it sounds like the military is going to help out with keeping their load off line when needed. It’s funny that we are back to the San Diego area being the test area for things. They were at the forefront- 1st area really effected by our botched effort at deregulation a decade and a half ago.
Back to weed eating. And yes, I will be getting a back up power system in place.
