Energy storage
Big batteries are booming in California, but the outlook for small-scale storage just got more uncertain
A new plan for solar net metering could slow adoption of home batteries — just when the state needs them most.
Elizabeth McCarthy
Elizabeth McCarthy is co-founder and managing editor of California Current. She has reported on energy, the climate crisis, water and health issues for various publications and organizations.
The Latest from Elizabeth McCarthy
-
-
Clean industry
Can the US take the lead on cleaner lithium production?
Three companies are attracting private and public funding for their potentially game-changing efforts to extract lithium from brine in California.
-
Fossil fuels
The dark side of California's emergency grid rescue plan: More dirty emissions from backup generators
Once again, disadvantaged communities bear the brunt when cleaner grid buildouts lag behind schedule.
-
Utilities
California's biggest utility plans to bury 10,000 miles of power lines. How much will that cost residents?
Wildfires and other climate disasters are pushing PG&E to put lines underground, but it's a notoriously expensive process.
-
Fossil fuels
California has embraced clean energy, so why is it still building natural gas infrastructure?
Decarbonization advocates are fighting ratepayer subsidies that incentivize the growth of an increasingly obsolete gas system.
-
Batteries
Used EV batteries could get a second life storing clean energy on California's grid
A surge in retired EV batteries is helping to eliminate second-life EV battery storage hurdles, just in time to help meet clean energy mandates.
-
Hydrogen
Los Angeles plans to jump-start a green hydrogen market in the US
LA wants to fuel its public utility with carbon-free hydrogen. Can it break through the nascent industry’s economic and technical challenges?
-
EV charging
EV charger installations in California are bogged down by local permitting
A six-year-old permitting law hasn’t unblocked installation delays — so state lawmakers are now considering mandates.
-
Utilities
PG&E’s $7.5B securitization: A bellwether for utility efforts to cover the costs of climate change?
Wildfire liability financing under scrutiny in California could presage efforts in other states to offset costs of coal plant retirements and climate-change mitigations.
Sponsored