Utilities gear up for greener standards

NORTHWEST GLENDALE — Being a California utility could get a lot more challenging under strict state-imposed greenhouse gas emission goals on the horizon, especially if they fail to take into account recent strides Glendale Water & Power has taken in going green, officials said.

Earlier this month, state regulators took a major step forward in defining exactly how every economic sector will contribute to slashing California’s greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels.

Utilities will shoulder a major portion of that effort when the schedules are established, power officials say, but in the meantime, many of them — including Glendale’s — have carried on with their own “greening” plans, unsure whether those efforts will count toward forthcoming emission-reduction goals.

Much of Glendale Water & Power’s efforts have been focused on increasing the proportion of renewable energy in its overall power portfolio. In 2006, the city adopted a Renewable Portfolio Standard policy and set a goal requiring that 20% of the energy sold to customers come from renewable sources — such as wind, solar and geothermal — by 2017.

Over the past year, the city-owned utility has made some notable strides in meeting the goal ahead of schedule and lessening the impact of its own footprint on the environment.

In November, the City Council approved an 18-year agreement with an Oregon facility to purchase 20 megawatts of wind-generated energy — the utility’s single largest commitment to wind power so far, said Ned Bassin, power management administrator for Glendale Water & Power.

This was in addition to other renewable energy contracts secured this year, including two for wind and one for geothermal, and as crews come close to completing a photovoltaic system at Glendale Community College that will supply the campus with an average annual 390,000 kilowatt hours of electricity for the next 50 years.

Over the past few years, procurements of renewable energy shipments from a mix of hydroelectric, wind, landfill, geothermal and photovoltaic sources have pushed Glendale’s renewable energy portfolio to more than 16% — just 4% shy of its goal for 2017, according to city staff reports.