2. Assembly Bill (AB) 2514

On September 29, 2010, Governor Schwarzenegger signed AB 2514 into law. Section 1 states the Legislature's policy that:

(a) Expanding the use of energy storage systems can assist electrical corporations, electric service providers, community choice aggregators, and local publicly owned electric utilities in integrating increased amounts of renewable energy resources into the electrical transmission and distribution grid in a manner that minimizes emissions of greenhouse gases;

(b) Additional energy storage systems can optimize the use of the significant additional amounts of variable, intermittent, and off-peak electrical generation from wind and solar energy that will be entering the California power mix on an accelerated basis;

(c) Expanded use of energy storage systems can reduce costs to ratepayers by avoiding or deferring the need for new fossil fuel-powered peaking power plants and avoiding or deferring distribution and transmission system upgrades and expansion of the grid;

(d) Expanded use of energy storage systems will reduce the use of electricity generated from fossil fuels to meet peak load requirements on days with high electricity demand and can avoid or reduce the use of electricity generated by high carbon-emitting electrical generating facilities during those high electricity demand periods. This will have substantial co-benefits from reduced emissions of criteria pollutants;

(e) Use of energy storage systems to provide the ancillary services otherwise provided by fossil-fueled generating facilities will reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and criteria pollutants; and

(f) There are significant barriers to obtaining the benefits of energy storage systems, including inadequate evaluation of the use of energy storage to integrate renewable energy resources into the transmission and distribution grid through long-term electricity resource planning, lack of recognition of technological and marketplace advancements, and inadequate statutory and regulatory support.