California to Get 50% of its Electricity from Renewable Energy Sources by 2020

SEATTLE (Oil Monster): The report released by the California Public Utilities Commission indicates that the state has made remarkable progress in its fight against climate change. According to the annual report published by the Commission, the state is likely to derive 50% of its electricity from renewable sources of energy including wind, tidal and solar by 2020. The state is likely to achieve the important milestone almost a decade ahead of schedule. The state legislation had set 2030 deadline to achieve the 50% target.

According to the report, the Renewables Portfolio Standard (RPS) program has helped the state to achieve significant reductions in cost for renewable electricity. The state has launched a series of solar power plants and wind farms. This has led to reduction in prices of both solar and wind energy. As per estimates, the price of solar energy dropped by nearly 77% from 2010 and 2016. Also, reported prices of wind contracts dropped by 47% over the same period.

The report outlines the progress of the retail sellers of electricity in compliance with the RPS program. It indicates that most state electrical corporations either met or exceeded the 25% RPS target for 2016. The large investor-owned utilities (IOU) have confirmed that they have already executed renewable electricity contracts sufficient to meet 2020’s 33% RPS requirement. The forecasts by IOU states that they are on track to meet the 2030 RPS requirement of 50% ten years ahead of schedule.

The RPS program has six interim compliance periods leading towards the 50% RPS mandate by 2030. The mandates for various interim periods are as follows: 2013-20%, 2016-25%, 2020-33%, 2024-40%, 2027-45% and 2030-50%.