Sacramento Report: Lawmakers Want to Cut Red Tape to Ramp up Battery Storage

Earlier this week I joined a group of energy experts and state lawmakers at a battery storage site in the Coachella Valley to learn how California is building out renewable energy systems and what needs to happen to speed up that process. 

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, was holding a hearing of the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform to figure out how to streamline permits for renewable energy transmission and generation. The Desert Peak battery storage project in Palm Springs, by NextEra Energy Resources, was the first stop. 

It’s silhouetted against the San Bernardino Mountains, surrounded by a field of wind turbines and next to a Southern California Edison substation that draws power from the Palo Verde nuclear generating station in Arizona and renewable energy projects in the desert. Rows of sheds house hundreds of lithium-ion batteries that store power and then feed it into the grid.  

Continue reading on www.voiceofsandiego.org.