Uncertain future for California's biomass power plants

Biomass power plants convert organic plant matter such as sawmill residues, green waste, orchard prunings, nut shells and fruit pits into electricity. Despite policy changes that have made the economics challenging, California has the most biomass power plants of any state. Yet according to the California Energy Commission, biomass-derived power only contributes about 2% of the state’s electricity. Government incentives to develop renewable energy date to 1978, when Congress passed the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA). A response to the 1970s oil crisis, PURPA aimed to reduce U.S. reliance on imported oil. California implemented PURPA to encourage biomass, wind and solar energy, leading to emergence of the biomass-to-electricity industry in the 1980s and early 1990s. The California Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), created in 2002 and subsequently strengthened several times, now requires utilities to source 33% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020. In 2010, California’s three largest Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) procured 17% of electricity from renewable sources, according to the state Public Utilities Commission. All new capacity brought online under the RPS in 2011 (830 megawatts) was either solar or wind — intermittent renewable energy sources that cannot provide consistent baseload power (the amount which utilities must make available to meet minimum demand, at all times on all days). With no new contracts, biomass-derived electricity appears to have less appeal to California utilities than it once did, when PURPA rst passed.