Brown seeks to broaden California's clean-energy reach in the West

Gov. Jerry Brown is working on an ambitious plan for transmitting electricity across state lines and bolstering California’s role in the region, according to energy officials.

The plan would integrate PacifiCorp, a utility serving six Western states, into the electricity grid run by the California Independent System Operator, which is based in Folsom.

If successful, it could make solar and wind energy available more widely throughout the West — a potential victory for Brown, who has sought partnerships beyond California’s borders in his fight against climate change.

“This would be gigantic,” said Carl Zichella, an environmental advocate who works on energy transmission issues for the Natural Resources Defense Council. “All of California’s climate laws were intended to drive policy in other states and at the federal level.”

The proposal has not yet been formally introduced as legislation, but it is part of the conversation as lawmakers debate measures for combating climate change in the final two weeks of the legislative year.

The governor’s office declined to comment on the issue.

The California Independent System Operator directs electricity from utility companies to 30 million customers in California and some of Nevada.

PacifiCorp produces power for 1.8 million people in six states — Utah, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, Washington and parts of Northern California — and operates its own electricity grid.

The two organizations agreed in April to study the possibility of integrating their systems, and officials at both operations said the Brown administration has been working with them.

Possible legislation could include changing the board of the California system operator to include members from other states. Right now, the board is appointed by California’s governor and confirmed by the state Senate.

Brown “has been supportive of the concept of a wider footprint,” said Patrick Reiten, a PacifiCorp executive who handles the company’s transmission system.

Integrating PacifiCorp with California’s grid would require approval from state regulators and the federal government, a process that could take years. But officials said changing the board would be a helpful step.

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Renewable energy requirement creates jobs, Berkeley study says

Chris Megerian

As lawmakers consider new measures to combat climate change, researchers at UC Berkeley released a study saying stronger renewable energy requirements would lead to new jobs.

As lawmakers consider new measures to combat climate change, researchers at UC Berkeley released a study saying stronger renewable energy requirements would lead to new jobs. ( Chris Megerian )

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“There’s a lot of benefit to this kind of geographic expansion,” said Oscar Hidalgo, a spokesman for the California Independent System Operator.

Assemblyman Henry Perea (D-Fresno), who supports the idea of integrating PacifiCorp, called it “one of the most significant policy changes we can make on energy in this decade.”

Boosting regional energy cooperation has been a key issue as California lawmakers consider requiring a greater share of electricity to come from clean sources.

Renewable energy can be difficult to manage because it’s impossible to control when the sun will shine or the wind will blow, and expanding the reach of grid operators could make it easier to ensure that energy supply meets demand.

“California really needs a regional market to be able to continue to build large amounts of renewable energy,” Zichella said. “We need a place to send that energy if we’re going to build more.”

State officials have started requiring utilities to store some excess energy, and a regional system is another way to address the issue.

“We’ll have a chance to send the solar we can’t use to states north and east of us,” Zichella said. And we’ll have a chance to get wind from states north and east of us.”

The proposal could still prove controversial with some environmentalists who are concerned about PacifiCorp’s reliance on burning coal.

“This is a moment to ensure the state is taking the necessary steps to protect its own policy interests,” said Bill Corcoran, western director of the Sierra Club’s anti-coal campaign.

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He’s concerned that electricity from dirty sources could make its way into California through a regional system, and he wants pressure on PacifiCorp to phase out its coal production.

Hidalgo said the system would be able to keep coal power out of California: The state’s cap-and-trade system, intended to promote clean air with fees levied on polluters, adds a financial penalty for dirtier fuels, making them less competitive on the market and less likely to be used on the grid.

“We’re seeing virtually no coal entering the state, because the economics don’t work,” he said.

There’s also the potential for opposition from unions, which want officials to focus on building new sources of renewable energy in California and keeping those jobs in the state, rather than on importing electricity from other states.

Steven Kelly, policy director of the Independent Energy Producers Assn. in Sacramento, said a regional system could make it tempting to build facilities elsewhere. Some states where PacifiCorp operates, such as Wyoming and Utah, have right-to-work laws that weaken unions.

“It’s so much easier to develop outside of California,” he said. “It’s a lot cheaper.”

Hidalgo said California’s grid operators are ready to expand their reach in the West, 15 years after an energy crisis led to rolling blackouts across the state.

“The grid has come a long way,” he said. “The energy crisis showed many flaws in the system that have since been cured.”

Twitter: @chrismegerian

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Copyright © 2015, Los Angeles Times

Brown seeks to broaden California"s clean-energy reach in the West

Brown professor investigating possible breakthrough in solar energy

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Nitin Padture is soft-spoken, so when he describes new solar power technology that he is researching his words are all the more striking because they’re delivered without bombast and with only a hint of excitement.

“This,” he says in his office at Brown University, “is a game changer.”

Padture, a professor of materials engineering, is talking about perovskites, crystal structures that could be used to replace conventional silicon in solar panels. Making them is cheap and, using a method Padture has patented, also relatively easy.

But the real promise lies in their versatility. Perovskites can be made in layers 1,000 times thinner than a human hair that can be applied to flexible films. They are semi-transparent and can be tinted yellow, red and other colors.

Instead of limiting the placement of photovoltaic panels to roofs or fields, imagine affixing them to walls as shingles or siding or even to windows as a special coating. The possibilities for generating electricity from sunlight could be significantly expanded.

“The vision is painting your house with solar cells,” says Padture.

Padture, who is director of Brown’s Institute for Molecular and Nanoscale Innovation, is leading a team of researchers that was recently awarded a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the potential of perovskite cells. He and other professors and students at Brown are working with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Rhode Island College on the four-year project.

Solar power has spread dramatically across the United States in recent years, but it still represents a small fraction of the nation’s energy mix at only 0.4 percent of total generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Despite the rise of leasing schemes offered by companies such as SolarCity and Sunrun, the main barrier for consumers is the high upfront cost of photovoltaic panels.

The cost has come down dramatically over the past four decades, from about $60 a watt in the 1970s to 60 cents a watt these days. But a homeowner could still pay thousands of dollars to buy and install a relatively small rooftop system.

Affordability

Perovskite panels could be part of a remedy. With a price, according to Padture, of less than 10 cents a watt, they could make solar power affordable to many more people. And he’s not alone in believing that they’re a major breakthrough.

“Time will tell, but many of us believe this is the field’s biggest breakthrough since the original invention of the solar cell sixty years ago,” Varun Sivaram, a solar researcher and fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in a recent blog post.

Page 2 of 3 – Perovskite crystals were discovered in the 1830s in the Ural Mountains in Russia and named after a Russian mineralogist. Although there are many varieties of crystal structures in the world, very few have the right “band gap” that allows them to absorb sunlight while still being able to generate electricity. Padture calls it the “Goldilocks sweet spot.”

Perovskites hit that sweet spot. They were first used in solar cells in 2009 and were soon recognized as a possible replacement for silicon cells because of their ease of manufacture.

While silicon cells must be fabricated in a complicated process that requires high temperatures and vacuums, perovskites can be made with less fuss in a lab.

Brown PhD student Yuanyuan Zhou demonstrates this in the university’s Advanced Ceramics and Nanomaterials Lab. After mixing a couple compounds in a solution, in no time he is able to separate the perovskite crystals for use in the research project. A stack of solar cells that he has already made rests on a shelf inside a sealed box he is using.

“They look simple to make, but making good cells is not easy,” Padture says while looking on. “We’re trying to come up with altogether new methods. That’s what drives us.”

Padture grew interested in perovskites in 2011 after leaving Ohio State University to take up his current position at Brown. His research until then had focused mainly on composites and high-performance ceramics, such as coatings that could withstand the extremely high temperatures in jet engines.

He read about the first work on perovskites, which was done in South Korea, and thought he could bring his expertise in developing new materials to a field dominated by chemists and physicists.

By 2013, with help from Zhou, Padture developed an innovative way of making crystals using different chemical solutions at room temperature as an alternative to using heat, a more common technique but one that limits production.

Efficiency at issue

The biggest question facing perovskite cells is efficiency — how well they convert sunlight to electricity. Silicon cells have peaked at about 25 percent efficient. The first perovskite cells were less than 4 percent efficient. Advances in research have pushed that number to 20 percent and Padture has gotten it as high as 18 percent. But if the new cells are to compete with conventional ones, efficiency must go up even higher.

As part of the work being funded through the NSF, the research team will look at ways to enhance the efficiency of the cells. Members will also study ways to make them more durable and consider whether they can be made lead-free.

Padture says that solar power holds more promise than any other renewable source “because the available energy is everywhere.” Harnessing all that energy is the challenge. He believes that perovskites could be the key.

Page 3 of 3 – “We’ve tested small samples, but the potential is there,” Padture says. “This could be a transformative technology.”

akuffner@providencejournal.com

(401) 277-7457

On Twitter: @KuffnerAlex

Brown professor investigating possible breakthrough in solar energy