Estimated Annual RPS-Certified Renewable Energy

2020 Target:
Senate Bill X1-2 (Simitian, Chapter 1, Statutes of 2011) was signed by former Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. in April 2011 to codify the ambitious 33 percent renewable energy by 2020 goal for all California utilities, including publicly owned utilities (POUs) that had been setting their own renewable targets.

2030 Target:
In 2018, former Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 100 (De León, Chapter 312, Statutes of 2018), increasing the 2030 renewable procurement requirement to 60 percent and implementing a 100 percent zero-carbon goal for 2045.

Annual RPS-Certified Renewable:
The annual electricity generation from a resource which adheres to the requirements of the RPS program as specified in the RPS guidebook, regulations, and has been certified by the Energy Commission as a resource that can generate renewable energy certificates (REC) for RPS compliance.

Annual RPS-certified Generation
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 Renewables Portfolio Standard 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.

Annual Generation:
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.

Percentage of Retail Sales:
The percent of retail sales shown is calculated using the amount of generation from RPS-certified facilities during the year and is divided by the total state retail sales for that year. This methodology more accurately reflects the potential RPS compliance percentages for a period of time. However, actual compliance is handled on a compliance period basis and requires adhering to RPS regulatory requirements and verification. The final compliance percentages may differ due to specific obligated party compliance requirements and situations. For more details, please read the Methodology section under Additional Information about the Data below.

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 QFER regulations provide for the collection of energy data relating to 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.

Information
The quantity of certified renewable generation serving California’s retail sales has steadily increased over the past years. These percentages shown reflect the quantity of renewable generation certified to produce RECs for complying with the RPS requirements. Obligated entities are required to adhere to the RPS regulatory requirements for compliance over a multi-year compliance period basis, not on an annual basis. Consequently, final compliance filings will differ from the estimated annual potential percentages presented in the figure above.

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.

Methodology

The estimated annual renewable percentage is calculated using the following equation:

Where:

• Annual RPS Generation = the estimated annual generation of electricity in GWhs from RPS-certified facilities.
• Retail Sales = the annual retail sales either adopted for the Energy Commission electricity demand forecast or subsequently updated QFER retail sales.

The annual percent of retail sales served by RPS-certified renewables differs from the Total System Electric Generation (TSEG) percent of generated renewables serving California because TSEG uses the total amount of electricity generated instead of retail sales as the denominator of the percent calculation. This leads to a lower percent renewable number since the amount of total generation is larger than retail sales. Retail sales is the amount of electricity delivered to California customers.

The percent of retail sales shown is calculated using the amount of generation from RPS-certified facilities during the year and is divided by the total state retail sales for that year. This methodology more accurately reflects the potential RPS compliance percentages for a period of time. However, actual compliance is handled on a compliance period basis and requires adhering to RPS regulatory requirements and verification. The final compliance percentages may differ due to specific obligated party compliance requirements and situations.

Citing
Please cite use of these data and images. California Energy Commission 2023. California Energy Commission Estimated Annual RPS-Certified Renewable Energy. 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