Welcome to the California Energy Commission

New Renewables Program

The New Renewable Resources Account, subsumed under the New Renewable Facilities Program, provides production incentives to renewable generating facilities for the support of renewable electricity generation and for the development of a consumer market for renewable power in California. Under Assembly Bill 1890, these funds were collected from the ratepayers of the investor owned utilities in California from January 1998 through March 2002. These electrical utilities include Pacific Gas & Electric Company, Southern California Edison Company, San Diego Gas & Electric Company, and Bear Valley Electric Service (a division of Golden State Water Company).

Senate Bill 90, enacted on October 12, 1997, established the Renewable Resource Trust Fund and provided direction for the distribution of funds in the New Renewable Resources Account (NRRA).

As directed, funds in the NRRA were awarded to new renewable generation projects through three competitive auctions held in 1998, 2000, and 2001. Eligible projects requested, or "bid," for production incentive payments for up to1.5 cents per kilowatt-hour for five years. Beginning with the lowest incentive request, bids were accepted until all were accepted or the funds allocated to the auction were depleted.

Following acceptance, winning bidders were notified that the Energy Commission would adopt a project award package, or "funding award agreement," after the project met specific development milestones. The Energy Commission accepted a total of 81 bids. Of these, 48 projects were developed and awarded funding between 1998 and 2005, representing 489 megawatts of installed annual capacity.

Since 1998, the NRRA has provided $72 million in incentive payments for 8,067 gigawatt-hours of renewable generation. The Energy Commission made (and in some cases continues to make) incentive payments once the projects began generating electricity. Payments were made on a monthly basis for a maximum of five years.

As amended by Senate Bill 1036, under Public Resources Code Section 25743, the Energy Commission was required to terminate all pending awards made to projects under the New Renewable Resources Account of the Renewable Resource Trust Fund (RRTF) prior to January 1, 2002, unless the projects were online and operational by January 1, 2007. In addition, Section 25743 required the Energy Commission, by March 1, 2008, to transfer the remaining unencumbered funds in the New Renewable Resources Account to the California electrical corporations whose ratepayers contributed funds to support the RRTF.


Renewable Generation Funded by the NRRA Since 1998


Renewable Resource Type Number of Projects Generation (GW-hrs)* Installed Annual Capacity (MW) Incentive Payments*
Biomass 2 190 11 $2,485,743
Wind 26 4,560 348 $31,094,653
Geothermal 2 2,010 59 $25,252,142
Landfill Gas 15 1,056 39 $12,100,533
Small Hydro 3 467 31 $2,765,812
Total 48 8,284 489 $73,698,883

*Program totals are current as of April 1, 2007.



Other Documents

Current New Renewable Resource Account Program Guidebook

New Renewable Resource Account Projects Funded Through the Energy Commission's Renewable Energy Program, July 2008. (PDF file, 35.6 kb)

Detailed Lists of Previous Auctions and the Winning Projects

Auction #1 Results - Energy Commission News Release (July 1998)

Auction #2 Results - Notice of Proposed Award, December 2000 (Acrobat PDF file, 2 pages, 132 kilobytes)

Auction #3 Results - Notice of Auction 6-01-3 (September 2001)

For questions regarding the New Renewable Resource Account, please contact:

Garry O'Neill
Phone: 916-651-0961
E-mail: goneill@energy.state.ca.us