Diablo Canyon’s closure could hurt communities of color. Here’s why

Last summer, failures and heat exhaustion at gas power plants contributed to California’s first non-wildfire related blackout in 19 years.

In the days following, when temperatures remained brutally high and California’s power supply remained dangerously low, Southern California Edison and its customers united to move 4,000 megawatts of demand off of the grid, preventing further blackouts.

The lesson? Demand response delivered solutions when gas generation failed.

With the California Public Utility Commission now rushing to prevent a similar disaster this summer, advocates are concerned regulators are not going far enough to invest in the clean energy resources and demand-side solutions that are key to supporting a reliable electricity grid.

Regulators have had years to plan for the closure of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant; the wind-down of the last of the Korean War-era coastal gas power plants; and the rapid closure of coal power plants in Western states that previously supplied imports to California.

But despite the evidence that investing in renewables is the most cost-effective solution, there has been a distinct and inexplicable failure by the CPUC to do so.

This is all the more concerning given that a new California Energy Commission analysis finds that California will need to move three times faster in building out solar and wind resources and eight times faster in adding new battery storage to meet California’s 100% clean energy target.

Now time is running out. A recent analysis from the Union of Concerned Scientists finds that without urgent action, California’s cumulative climate-warming emissions from the electricity sector will be 15.5 million metric tons higher over the next decade as a result of the closure of Diablo Canyon.

Filling this procurement gap with gas rather than renewable energy will also increase NOx pollution by an estimated 1,890 metric tons over the next decade. This pollution will burden communities of color and low-income communities where 78% of California’s gas power plants reside — areas already disproportionately impacted by power shutoffs, COVID-19 and systemic inequities.

At the same time, the CPUC has been plagued by a series of inexcusable bureaucratic delays in siting and permitting approved and financed transmission upgrades that are key to bringing renewable energy resources online. Without immediate intervention, this failure could shut out thousands of megawatts of renewable energy resources that could play a key role in meeting California’s electricity needs without additional gas power.

Last month, regulators additionally chose to maintain a power sector target that only reduces electricity sector emissions to 46 million metric tons by 2030 — a standard too weak to meet California’s climate targets.

Taken together, these decisions present a distinct threat to our state. The CPUC is foolish and reckless to expect polluting gas to solve a problem it created.

It doesn’t have to be this way. While the CPUC is doubling down on gas, the publicly owned Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has provided a model for planning for the transition to clean energy. The utility has found that not only is 100% clean energy achievable, ratepayer costs can be lowered if we pursue a broader suite of solutions. The publicly owned utility in Northern California, the Sacramento Metropolitan Utility District, is engaged in a similar exercise.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has a responsibility to protect Californians from the health and climate consequences of the CPUC’s regulatory failures. We are counting on him to intervene and direct his agencies to uphold their responsibility to transition to 100% clean energy.

Luis Amezcua has also written about how to solve California’s heat-induced rolling blackouts.

V. John White has also written about California’s need for a better plan to achieve ambitious clean energy goals. They wrote this for CalMatters, a nonpartisan, nonprofit journalism venture committed to explaining how California’s state Capitol works and why it matters.