On May 25, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the “Building the Electricity Grid of the Future: California’s Clean Energy Transition Plan, ” showcasing how California will reach 100% clean electricity by 2045 while keeping costs affordable and maximizing energy supply through this transition.
The “Building the Electricity Grid of the Future: California’s Clean Energy Transition Plan” roadmap identifies the challenges ahead and how California will tackle them. One of the identified challenges is the fact that California is in a race against climate change, but the state is also leading the clean energy revolution.
Additionally, California is creating modern rules to build a modern electrical grid and has a plan to manage the transition to clean energy.
“California has shown we have a vision, and that vision is achievable. This update highlights how we have hit our early targets, some even ahead of schedule, but we are in a race against climate change,” stated Governor Newsom. “We must build more, faster, to ensure California has the clean, reliable, and affordable electricity it needs to power our future.”
Governor Newsom made his announcement in Richmond, where he highlighted a vision that will include hundreds of new solar, wind, battery storage, and other clean energy projects. He also spoke about the role of technology in this modern electricity grid, which will allow users to supply power to the grid that they have stored in their zero-emission car batteries and other appliances.
Newsom stated that this will make the grid more efficient, reliable, and affordable.
“Climate change is adding to our urgency to act – hotter temperatures, more wildfires, and drought are all threatening our old power supply. The modern electricity grid must not only be clean but be more able to endure demand amid hotter, drier weather,” the Governor’s office stated in a press release.
According to the press release, California will have to build 148,000 megawatts of new clean power by 2045. The state has currently already built 35,000 megawatts of clean electricity capacity for the grid, which is the equivalent of 35 million homes’ average usage.
The latest data from the California Energy Commission showed that in 2021, 59% of the state’s energy came from renewable and zero-carbon resources.
“But to fully meet our goals, it will take investment from both the public and private sectors, and modernizing our rules to ensure we can build the clean energy projects we need to power our state,” the press release said.
