Solar Industry Publishes Article by Dario Frommer on California’s New Clean Energy Goals

Solar Industry magazine has published the article “The Hurdles Of Meeting California’s Ambitious Clean Energy Goals,” written by Akin Gump public law and policy partner Dario Frommer.

The article examines the challenges involved with complying with a new California law that, as Frommer writes, “significantly boosts the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) goals, doubles energy-efficiency targets, authorizes a regional energy market, and requires energy regulators to focus procurement decisions on reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.” Frommer says the legislation also creates a regional energy market and “seeks better coordination of long-term planning for energy and transmission needs.”

Among the obstacles to implementing the new law, according to Frommer, are resistance from labor unions and environmental groups and efforts by the California legislature to either reform or abolish the state’s Public Utilities Commission. He concludes that California’s future as a clean energy leader depends on “how it meets the difficulties of integrating renewable resources and reducing GHG emissions while maintaining a reliable grid and distribution system with rates that don’t shock ratepayers.” Frommer observes that the state must also address “a growing green energy divide between its wealthiest and poorest communities to ensure that all of its citizens can enjoy the benefits of an advanced energy economy.” Doing all this, he says, will be necessary in order to “tame what has become the Wild West of energy policy.”

To read the full article, please click here.