2020 RPS-Certified Renewables

CEC Licensed Power Plants:
Thermal power plants which are under the jurisdiction of and are licensed by the California Energy Commission. The California Energy Commission licenses thermal power plants 50 megawatts (MW) and greater and the infrastructure serving the plants such as electric transmission lines, fuel supply lines, and water pipelines.

Generation (GWh):
The annual amount of electricity generated in gigawatt hours.

GWh:
Gigawatt hour is an electric unit of measurement equal to one million watts of power supplied to, or taken from, an electric circuit steadily for one hour.

Percent Clean Energy:
The quantity of RPS-certified renewable, large hydroelectric, or nuclear electric generation divided by the corresponding retail sales either adopted by the Energy Commission or subsequently updated. A detailed discussion of the percent RPS-certified renewables can be found at the Estimated Annual RPS-Certified Renewable Energy dashboard.

Power Source Disclosure (PSD):
The PSD Power Source Disclosure program was established by Senate Bill (SB) 1305 (Stats. 1997, ch. 796) in an effort to provide retail electricity consumers “accurate, reliable, and simple to understand information on the sources of energy that are used to provide electric services.” This program provides consumers a detailed view into the sources of energy purchased and associated greenhouse gas emissions by their retail suppliers to power their homes and businesses.

Quarterly Fuels and Energy Report (QFER):
The set of data collection regulations that collect California electric generation, control area exchanges, and natural gas processing and deliveries. Electricity generation data is collected for power plants with nameplate capacities greater than 1MW located within California or within a control area with California end users.

Resource Type:
Categories of similar renewable electric generation facilities as defined under California’s RPS regulations.

RPS-certified Renewable:
An electrical generating facility which has met the requirements and followed the process for approval as a certified eligible renewable energy resource for purposes of complying with California’s RPS program. The Energy Commission, consistent with the California Code of Regulations, Title 20, Section 3201 (k), must determine the facility meets the definition of a ʺrenewable electrical generation facilityʺ in Section 399.12 (e) of the Public Utilities Code, including a facility satisfying the criteria of Section 399.12.5 of the Public Utilities Code.

Information
The quantity of RPS-certified renewable generation serving California’s retail sales has steadily increased over the past years. The quantity of large hydroelectric production has varied significantly based on precipitation in the western region while nuclear production has stayed relatively stable given the availability of nuclear power plants.

Data last updated: 1/10/2023

Data Collection Information
Source of data was collected from Energy Commission data submittals including QFER, RPS, and PSD data sources and external data sources.

Citing
Please cite use of these data and images. California Energy Commission 2023. California Energy Commission 2020 RPS-Certified Renewables. Data last updated [insert date last updated]. Retrieved [insert date retrieved] from https://www.energy.ca.gov/programs-and-topics/topics/renewable-energy/clean-energy-serving-california