The California Power Fee (CEC) started a world customer program greater than 30 years in the past, and it’s one of many state’s oldest worldwide applications. In 2019, earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic, the CEC welcomed 71 delegations from 5 continents that had been visiting to study their insurance policies, applications and providers. Clear Power States Alliance analysis affiliate Sam Schacht spoke with three senior members of the CEC — Worldwide Relations Senior Advisor Alana Sanchez, Chief of Workers for CEC Chair David Hochschild Katerina Robinson, and Director for Siting, Transmission and Environmental Safety Division Elizabeth Huber — about how California has labored with worldwide and sub-national companions to advance the clear vitality transition and offshore wind. Their dialog was shared with Windpower Engineering and Improvement.
Sam: What’s the function and good thing about worldwide cooperation in state-level vitality coverage, and the way does that collaboration come about?
Katerina: California is the fifth largest financial system on the earth, which mainly makes us a rustic. We really feel it’s essential to have a lot of these negotiations, discussions and open pathways of communication with different nations. Governor Newsom has been daring in local weather motion and has prioritized constructing relationships with different nations. We’ve identified for a few years that our local weather motion alone doesn’t save the local weather. It’s going to be California’s actions, studying and spurring of the inexperienced financial system that’s then exported to different nations that may have the best impacts on stopping and reversing local weather change at scale. As well as, now we have loads to study from different nations which are doing their very own clear vitality growth and technological innovation. This sharing of data and technological abilities throughout nations may help scale back the associated fee for all of preventing local weather change.
Alana: Now we have what’s referred to as the Worldwide Local weather Motion Staff (ICAT), and we work throughout completely different companies, boards and commissions to make sure that we’re coordinated and unified in our strategy to worldwide engagement. The Governor and Lt. Governor lead quite a lot of the engagement. Typically we’ll get curiosity from a rustic particularly for the vitality fee, which we flag for the worldwide inter-agency staff and our management to see if there’s curiosity in increasing cooperation, so we will have a memorandum of understanding (MoU). These MoUs deal with vitality points, however usually additionally deal with local weather points and commerce points extra broadly.
Sam: California has an MoU with Scotland and Denmark that particularly point out offshore wind. What are some methods through which these nations knowledgeable California’s strategy to offshore wind, and what are some ways in which California has influenced their strategy?
Elizabeth: These MoUs set up a framework between our nations to advertise sharing data, experiences, information and greatest practices relative to offshore wind vitality and decarbonization of the residential growth, industrial agricultural and constructing sectors. Denmark and Scotland are additional alongside on offshore wind than we’re — it’s the one sector that we aren’t main. Hopefully, we’ll lead sooner or later. Up to now, many countries have offshore wind vitality initiatives utilizing fixed-bottom foundations, that are extra appropriate for shallow waters of 60 m (about 200 ft) or much less. The deep waters of the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf off California’s coast have steep drop-offs requiring California to put in offshore wind generators utilizing floating platforms anchored to the seabed, just like the 88 MW of floating offshore wind vitality generators put in in Norway. By means of these agreements, we attempt to study classes and greatest practices that we will implement in addition to share the data with different nations. These MoUs have helped transfer our work ahead with federal company companions, and our state-wide program strategic planning. They’ve additionally helped us mentor different nations. For example, at COP 27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, we met with states in Australia. The shoreline off of New South Wales is just like California’s, and so they wished to study our work on floating wind applied sciences and planning targets. We’re studying from a few of our European companions, after which we’re capable of take that and share it with different nations and states inside our sub-national partnerships. It’s round data sharing all over the world.
Katerina: We additionally hope that this collaboration will scale back prices for the California charge payers. By studying from others, we’ll scale back prices by not reinventing the wheel. The extra we will study collectively and have a globalized financial system and provide chains round new clear applied sciences, the inexpensive it’ll be for all of us. And as we develop our personal home provide chains, we will begin out by importing after which start constructing some issues ourselves, study from others’ errors, and get monetary savings.
Sam: How do you see this cooperation enjoying out sooner or later? Are there any future avenues for collaboration?
Katerina: We’re beginning to work extra with our neighbors, and sometimes that work is stimulated by our worldwide companions. For instance, we meet with Denmark month-to-month on a pair completely different areas of focus. Through the pandemic we met with them twice a month, which helped to construct our relationship. They’re doing work in Mexico, and we’re additionally doing work in Mexico. If we will work past bilateral, if we will work on trilateral or multilateral engagement, I feel that’s a win. One other instance of that’s that the Chair of the CEC, David Hochschild, was lately abroad in Japan. By means of a few of our Danish and Japanese contacts, we visited Norway in Might for Floating Days, a floating offshore wind convention.
Alana: Denmark has been a really robust companion with us as we glance into Energy-to-X. That’s an space that we’re a bit additional behind. Final September, Denmark helped host a European offshore wind examine tour for about 20+ delegates from California. That allowed our inter-agency staff — people from California Coastal Fee, Land Fee, and so forth. — to go and see offshore wind at scale together with some floating wind in Scotland. Denmark actually rolled out the crimson carpet for our staff, and we acquired to see important issues, just like the Port of Esbjerg, and ask them quite a lot of questions.
Katerina: One other important facet of our intergovernmental collaboration is working very carefully with California Native American Tribes. There are roughly 110 federally acknowledged tribes in California, essentially the most tribes in any state. They’ve been stewards of the land and had been capable of thrive for hundreds of years. Tribes usually present important providers to their native communities. They’ve deep native and conventional data that we’re studying from to assist us to develop new clear applied sciences in a approach that doesn’t repeat the errors of the previous within the vitality sector. We take these bilateral negotiations very significantly. Earlier this yr, all 5 commissioners of each the Public Utility Fee and the Power Fee in Humboldt met with tribal leaders all through the state to debate advancing clear vitality in partnership with tribes.
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