Renewable energy is booming in California, but many project developers must race the clock to break ground by year’s end, or risk losing federal stimulus money under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA),  in the form of cash grants from the U.S. Treasury totaling up to 30 percent of total project costs.

So if you’re a California solar or wind developer, and you want to safeguard your stimulus cash, you bring in the big guns. You call in The Terminator — none other than California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger – who wrote to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Chairman Jon Wellinghoff in mid-October on behalf of more than a half-dozen developers, asking FERC’s assistance in getting transmission line hookups OK’d by CAISO, the California Independent System Operator, which oversees much of California’s power grid.  The developers would need these grid interconnections to secure funding, finalize contracts, purchase materials, and otherwise get their ducks in a row for the December 31st ARRA deadline.

But then a funny thing happened. Roughtly 10 days of receiving the Governor’s letter, FERC issued two groundbreaking decisions that alter current policy and will make it far easier for wind and solar developers to secure those coveted grid hookups.

Was it Arnold’s doing? We’ll never know. But maybe now we should start calling him The Stimulator. Read more »

Posted: December 9th, 2010 under California, Electric Utility Regulation, FERC, Generator Interconnections, Reliability, Renewable Energy, Solar Energy, Transmission Planning, Transmission Rate Incentives, Transmisson Technology, Wind Energy.
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