The CEC has permitted major energy facilities since the agency was established by the Legislature more than 50 years ago. In 2022, the Legislature expanded the CEC’s permitting authority by creating the Opt-In Certification Program. As part of that process, the CEC evaluates proposed projects under CEQA and determines whether a project should be approved and under what conditions.
Senate Bill 254 (Becker, 2025) directs the CEC to prepare a Program Environmental Impact Report (PEIR) covering one or more types of clean energy facilities for which it has received an Opt-In application (Public Resources Code section 21159.30 et seq.). To date, the CEC has received applications for battery energy storage systems, solar energy facilities, and wind energy facilities. In preparing the PEIR, the CEC will consult with California Native American tribes and state, regional, and local agencies that have regulatory authority over the types of facilities being analyzed.
This page will be updated during implementation.
A PEIR is a program-level environmental study prepared under CEQA. It evaluates the potential environmental impacts of development of a group of related, hypothetical projects, rather than an individual site-specific project. A PEIR identifies common environmental impacts and mitigation strategies that can be applied consistently across the class of projects analyzed.
The CEC or another agency considering a proposed project covered by the PEIR can use relevant analysis in the PEIR, saving time and resources. The agency still will evaluate each proposed project’s site-specific and design impacts and any impacts not in the PEIR or that are more significant than those evaluated in the PEIR. This process of using a broader analysis to inform and streamline the review of individual project is called “Tiering.”
The PEIR must contain:
- A description of the class or classes of clean energy facility being analyzed.
- A description of potential project locations.
- An analysis, to the extent feasible, of the potential environmental impacts.
- A description of potentially feasible mitigation measures to avoid or minimize the impacts identified.
- An identification of trustee and potential responsible agencies with regulatory authority over the class or classes of facility.
- An analysis of cumulative impacts and project alternatives.