The staff of California Public Utilities Commission is recommending a “no” vote for two power purchase agreements in which SCE will buy power from BrightSource’s yet-to-be-built Rio Mesa solar project. The staff said the two agreements are too expensive and noted that the power plants for the contracts won’t have ways to store electricity for later use. The three remaining power purchase agreements between the two companies involve other power plants that will have energy storage, which will give Edison more flexibility to manage supply and demand.

The commission was originally scheduled to vote on the five power purchase agreements today but opted to postpone the decision until next month. The postponement request came from commission president Michael Peevey, who often pushes and wins approval for controversial projects from his fellow commissioners by coming up with alternative proposals that contain compromises.

The commission staff said in the report that storage is a “unique attribute” that “decreases renewable integration risk and provides more value to ratepayers.” With energy storage, a utility could bank electricity when demand is low and release the power when demand is high. It makes a solar power plant act more like conventional fossil fuel power plants, which can produce power any time of the day. California utilities are under mandates to increase the amount of renewable energy they serve to their customers, and they are turning to solar and wind energy to meet the requirements.

Solar and wind farms only produce power when the sun is out or the wind is blowing, so they won’t be able to send electricity to the grid consistently in ways that fossil fuel power plants can. An electric grid runs smoothly when there is a balance of supply and demand, however, and that makes managing solar and wind energy a tricky business. The ability to bank solar or wind electricity will help solve this dilemma. In fact, the commission is considering whether to require utilities to pay for energy storage as more solar and wind energy flows into the grid.

The cost of adding energy storage doesn’t always make sense, especially in the case of using newer storage technologies, such as batteries. But it does for BrightSource, which announced last August that it would start designing storage into its power plants. The Oakland company then revealed last November that it would add energy storage in some of the power plants that would serve Edison’s customers. The announcement mentioned three contracts to sell power to Edison, the same contracts that are now under review by the commission.

Edison actually sought approval for all five contracts back in 2009, when energy storage played no part. Then it re-negotiated the contracts with BrightSource in 2011 after BrightSource had modified those power plant proposals to reduce their environmental impact.  This time around, energy storage made its way into three of the contracts.

The two contracts that won’t benefit from storage are part of the proposed Rio Mesa project, which is under review by California Energy Commission. BrightSource applied for Rio Mesa’s approval last October, and ideally it would have approved contracts to sell power from the project in hand once it gets the permits to build it. Lining up those contracts also will be important for convincing investors to finance the project.

BrightSource plans to use tanks of molten salt for storing the thermal energy produced by its fields of mirrors. The mirrors concentrate and direct sunlight to heat up a water-containing boiler atop of a tower. The steam from the heated water runs the turbine and generator to produce electricity. If the steam isn’t going to be used to generate electricity, then it will be piped to heat the molten salt, which is good at trapping heat. Power plant operators can then use the hot molten salt to produce steam for electricity generation whenever that is needed.

BrightSource isn’t alone in finding out the necessity of offering storage to attract utility customers. Areva Solar told me a few months ago that it had finally decided on using molten salt for storage for its power plants. Areva also uses mirrors to harness the sun’s heat to produce electricity, but the mirror and power plant design is quite different from BrightSource’s.

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The California Energy Commission plans to set energy efficiency standards for 15 products, which also include computer monitors, pool pumps and outdoor street lights, reported the San Jose Mercury News. Manufacturers tend to find energy efficiency standards onerous, but those rules also spell opportunities for tech companies that develop ways to reduce energy use.

The state has been setting energy efficiency standards since the late 1970s, and regulators are proud to point out that California is ahead of the country in pushing manufactures to consider energy use in their product development. In January this year it approved a standard for battery chargers for cell phones, computers and other equipment. The standard will be in effect starting Feb. 1 2013 for chargers used for consumer electronics and later for other gear. California households are home to about 170 million chargers total, or 11 per home, and the new standard will reduce energy use by almost 2,200 gigawatt hours and save $300 million also each year, the commission said.

The commission already has set standards for television and home appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioners and clothes dryers.

Not only is the commission targeting electronic gadgets, it also has tackled energy efficiency rules for buildings. Last month, the commission approved standards for new home and commercial building construction that mandate the use of certain types of windows, insulation, lighting and others. The requirements include making sure the residential and commercial building roofs are designed and built to allow solar panel installations. Commercial buildings will need to install sensors to make it possible for more natural light to come through the windows.

Not surprisingly, manufactures are often not pleased by these rules. The Consumer Electronics Association has been a leading critic of California’s effort for years and said the state has used outdated data to come up with energy efficiency standards. It added manufacturers have taken their own initiatives to reduce power use in their products, and in a response to California’s standard for TVs set in 2009, the association said the standard would increase the prices of gadgets, cut jobs and cause the state to lose tax revenues.

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The funds come from Canada-based Enbridge, an oil and gas distribution company that recently became a solar power plant developer (the company also invests in wind, geothermal and fuel cell installations). The money is the first solar technology investment by Enbridge, which owns three solar farms that use First Solar’s solar panels. Enbridge could potentially become a Morgan Solar customer down to road, too.

The funding from Enbridge closes the B round, which totals $28.8 million. Morgan Solar’s co-founder and vice president of business development and marketing, Nicolas Morgan, told us earlier this year that the company wanted to raise $20-$25 million. The company, based in Toronto, Canada, needed the capital to jumpstart production at a factory in California, where it also has gotten a $3.3 million loan from the California Energy Commission to set up its manufacturing facility in Chula Vista, near San Diego.

The factory will start with an annual capacity of 8 megawatts, said Emma Hemmingsen, Morgan Solar’s communication manager. The factory equipment has already arrived, and the company plans to get it up and running in the first quarter of 2012, she added. Morgan Solar has a panel assembly plant in Toronto and uses optics made by Nypro, which is also an investor. But the California factory is key for Morgan Solar to move into the mass production mode. The company previously was hoping to start production this year.

Morgan Solar is a developer of concentrating photovoltaic technology, which uses mirrors and lenses to amplify and direct the sun’s energy onto solar cells. A typical CPV system is made up of one panel containing many lenses and corresponding solar cells. The panel, which is much larger than the solar panels you see on your neighbor’s rooftop, sits on a tracker that trains the panel to follow the sun’s movement throughout the day.

Depending on the designs, a concentrating solar technology can concentrate the sun by a few times or even 1,000 times, as is the case with Morgan Solar. Higher concentrating systems require more precise tracking and control systems, and they use more expensive but also more efficient solar cells that use a mix of materials such as gallium-arsenide and germanium.

Concentrating photovoltaic technology has been garnering more investments lately. California-based Solaria, which is develops low-concentrating technology, recently raised $30 million.

Morgan Solar’s CPV system comes with its Sun Simba solar panels and a tracker it called Savanna, which it unveiled in September this year.

Aside from Enbridge and Nypro, other Morgan Solar investors include power generation giant, Iberdrola and The Frost Group. Including the B round, Morgan Solar has raised $38 million total since its inception in 2007.

Photo courtesy of Morgan Solar

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Solar Trust of America is asking the commission to review and permit its Ridgecrest Solar Power Project even though, historically, the commission doesn’t get involved in projects that use PV technology. Solar Trust contends that state law allows the commission to take on PV projects if the project developers request it. Solar Trust initially proposed to use solar thermal technology (instead of panels) for the 250 MW project, but it indicated a few months ago that it wanted to use solar panels instead. The commission’s staff disagrees with Solar Trust’s interpretation of the state law. The commission oversees thermal power plants that are 50 MW or larger.

Solar thermal technology generally makes use of mirrors to direct the sunlight on fluid-containing pipes or a boiler to produce steam, which is then used to run a turbine to produce electricity. Solar panels use semiconductors such as silicon to convert sunlight into electricity.

Why you should pay attention

There are some key reasons why you should care about the debate at the commission. Although the Solar Trust case only deals with one project, it could lead to more requests from developers to have the commission oversee PV power plants. That could, in effect, strip counties and cities of the ability to have the final say on PV power projects (if a project is on federal land, then the federal government is in charge). Some environmental groups also argue that Solar Trust’s action amounts to picking and choosing which government agency it believes will issue permits with the least hassles.

A solar power plant often requires a lot of land, sometimes a lot of water (for equipment cleaning and power generation), and can sometimes come at the expense of wildlife protection. So, the process of planning and permitting solar projects is an important consideration for all Californians, especially given the growing number of large solar power projects under development.

Are the steps of getting a state permit more or less onerous? That is open to debate. A county or city could offer a shorter and less expensive process, especially if it really wants the project for job creation and tax revenues. On the other hand, dealing with local politics isn’t guaranteed to be easier, and the permitting process can drag on if the local government lacks the experience or rules to shepherd a project along.

First Solar and SunPower are both developing PV power plants in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., and they recently signed a pact with three environmental organizations to spend money on buying more land for wildlife protection. First Solar has been working on the 550 MW Topaz Solar project since it bought it from OptiSolar in 2009. It received a land use permit from the county in July this year and is waiting for a final construction permit before it can start building Topaz, said John McKenzie, the county’s senior planner. SunPower’s 250 MW California Valley Solar Ranch project has followed a similar time line.

Project in limbo

Solar Trust actually wanted to abandon the Ridgecrest project in January this year, after realizing the commission wasn’t likely to approve the project mainly because of its impact on the Mojave ground squirrel. The company then changed its mind about ditching the project and said it would reduce the generation size of the project and use solar panels, which it said also will help reduce the need for grading and water. Solar Trust hasn’t filed the paperwork to formally declare it would use solar panels, but the company recently said it would switch from solar thermal to PV if it makes economic sense.

In a hearing on the issue last month, Solar Trust officials laid out their legal argument on why the commission can take on the Ridgecrest as a PV project, but they didn’t articulate why they would want that. The project as proposed would be on land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management. The project already was under review by the BLM and commission when it was proposed to use solar thermal, and switching to PV means BLM would be the only final authority for the project. Solar Trust’s officials aren’t available to comment Tuesday.

Photos courtesy of Solar Millennium and Oregon Department of Transportation

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What we need is something like a Kelley Blue Book for solar. Here’s why: Consumers not only need help looking for new equipment; they also want to know how to evaluate used equipment. A good online pricing guide will become more important as manufacturers roll out equipment that aims to simplify the installation process and cost and perhaps entice people one day to try to install the equipment themselves.

Informative websites can help play a role in educating consumers about solar. So, too, can some trusted authorities, such as Consumer Reports, offer some solid advice. In addition, California, the largest solar market in the country, keeps an online list of registered installers and urges consumers to get at least three bids. But I haven’t found any site that provides objective reviews and ratings of various equipment models, manufacturers, installers and their services.

The current online used market

Selling used equipment isn’t a novel phenomenon. E-commerce sites such as Craigslist and eBay offer some listings. But you would have to be well versed in solar technology to know whether you are getting the right gear and a good deal.

Some listings simply show photos of solar panels and a sentence or two about the price. On eBay, you can get 4 Siemens solar panels made in 1997 for $999.99. If you want to get a small solar panel for, say, charging your gadgets, you can find whole or broken solar cells for sale. One such ad I found even gave a link to a YouTube video showing how to solder the cells together.

Putting a value on used solar equipment is difficult, however. Solar manufacturers typically offer a warranty of 20 to 25 years on their goods, but most of the grid-connected residential solar systems haven’t been around that long. A leap of faith is required to invest in used systems. When consumers buy used equipment of any kind, be it a car or flat-screen TV, they want assurances that although they are getting gears that aren’t going to perform like brand-new ones, they can still count on a certain level of solid performance.

A trusted system

A trusted authority on new and used solar gear also could help the growing number of homeowners who want to know how to put a value on their rooftop installations when they want to sell their homes. A rooftop solar system isn’t so portable after all, and people often don’t live in the same place for decades. The California Energy Commission recently launched an online calculator that spits out numbers showing how much in energy savings can be achieved by a solar system at a particular address over the remaining lifetime of a system.

While the energy savings information is nice to present to prospective buyers, it doesn’t necessary indicate how much the next homeowner will save. How much and how quickly a homeowner can get a return on her investment depends partly on how much electricity will be used. Two sets of owners for the same home can have wildly different utility bills. Home buyers also may not want to keep the solar panels and opt to sell them.

Right now, generally only well-off people can afford to buy solar rooftop panels, since it can be as expensive as a new car, if not more so. Some of these early adopters often aren’t as concerned about getting paybacks quickly as they are about doing something that is good for the environment. Others who want to do the same but don’t have the cash to buy the equipment are starting to find financing options. Used solar equipment offers yet another opportunity for more people to go solar.

Given that the solar market is relatively new – California launched its residential rebate program in 2007 – there aren’t a huge number of used systems available. As the market grows, however, you will find more people trade up their solar equipment for a more efficient version or get rid of it for a host of other reasons. It’s not too early to start amassing performance data and organizing it in ways that help consumers find the best systems they can afford. The trick is to do it right.

Photos of Solar Decathlon courtesy of the U.S. Department of Energy

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SAVE targets real estate brokers and appraisers, but the calculator has a simple setup that consumers can easily manage, too. Users enter information such as address, solar-system size, when the installation took place and whether the user owns or leases. The calculator makes use of weather data, local utility rates and data from two solar incentive programs run by the commission to calculate the energy savings.

It’s interesting to note that SAVE doesn’t pull data from California Solar Initiative, which is the biggest solar incentive program in the state, and it is overseen by the California Public Utilities Commission. So users will have to input some data manually, and this could lead to some fancy math to manipulate the results. The energy commission is working with the utilities commission on using the CSI data, said energy commission spokeswoman Amy Morgan.

The calculator spits out numbers such as how much users can save in energy costs (in low-, medium- and high-energy-use scenarios) over the remaining lifetime of the system. Each system generally lasts 20–25 years. You also get an annual energy-cost-saving figure for the current year. The idea with that is to use energy-saving figures to show a prospective home buyer how much she can save over time and therefore how much more she should pay for the home.

SAVE is a good starting point for consumers or real estate brokers who need some baseline numbers to work with. A solar-energy system is as pricey as a new car, and how much value that adds to a new or existing home is debatable and no doubt varies greatly depending on many factors, such as the home’s location and the quality of the equipment, installation and maintenance.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) also recently ran an analysis to quantify what premiums solar can bring to sales values of new and existing homes in California, the largest solar market in the country. The report showed that solar homes in California had been sold for a premium at between $3.90 per watt to $6.40 per watt. That spread amounted to an average

of a $17,000 premium for a fairly new (roughly two years old) 3.1 KW system, which is the average system size in the data, the report said. The premium began to decrease as systems aged.

The information you get from the energy commission’s new online calculator is simplistic and  may not be as useful as the LBNL study, however. Homeowners who are willing to spend the money on solar, whether owning or leasing the equipment, probably already have received some energy-saving estimates from their installer or have done their own calculations before investing in a system.

The tool could be more useful to people who bought new homes that have already come with solar. Builders sometimes bundle solar into the overall home price, and the Berkeley Lab report noted that builders might be willing to charge less for adding solar in order to speed up sales. So a buyer isn’t likely to know the price of their rooftop solar equipment. A new homeowner probably doesn’t receive a breakdown from her builders of how much energy savings she could get over time.

The calculator is not meant to help consumers who want to figure out the cost and benefits of installing solar. For that the energy commission has another online calculator called Clean Power Estimator.

Photos courtesy of Solmentum, GigaOM

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In a letter to DyoCore, the commission said the company violated the rules of its Emerging Renewable Program (ERP) by “submitting grossly overstated information regarding the performance characteristics of the DyoCore SolAir wind turbine (model no. S80015dc) in order to have the wind turbine listed by the Energy Commission as eligible for use under the ERP.”

The commission has doled out $515,385 in rebates for 33 installations that use DyoCore’s wind turbines. It has approved, but not yet paid, rebate applications worth about $6.4 million, plus another $31.2 million worth of applications that have yet to go through the review process.

The commission said it intends to recover excess payments and may refer the case to the state Attorney General’s office. The commission staff has investigated the case and filed the initial complaint, but the commissioners have to do their own review and are holding public hearings before deciding what actions to take.

DyoCore claims its SolAir turbine can produce 1.6 KW of power when the wind hits at 18 miles per hour, the commission said. The commission asked KEMA, its technical contractor, to examine that claim, and KEMA concluded in a report that the 1.6 KW is “7.5 times greater than theoretically possible at that wind speed and 9 times greater than the optimal output of a state-of-the-art turbine rotor with the same diameter.”

In a written response to the commission, sent to us by DyoCore’s CTO David Raine, the company disputed the allegation and said it provided the right data. The company also said it’s willing to use different performance figures for its turbine and plans to provide data from tests conducted by a third party.

“The allegations in the complaint are misleading and false,” the company wrote.

The case reflects the potential abuses that generous incentive programs can attract, beyond just wind energy. The California Public Utilities Commission, which runs the state’s solar incentive program, added a rule last year that requires installers to justify why they would charge more than $14.70 per watt for a solar electric system. That price was way higher than the average.

Although the solar incentive is based on the system’s expected power output, not price, the utilities commission didn’t want consumers to be overcharged for goods and services. Plus, a federal tax incentive is based on the price of a system. The limit is “part of efforts to protect consumers from over-priced solar systems and thwart fraudulent federal tax claims.” Molly Sterkel, who oversees the CSI program at the CPUC, told us last year.

Clean power exaggeration

Based in the southern California city of Carlsbad, DyoCore makes small wind turbines that can go on rooftops or mounted on poles (such as utility poles), making them suitable for installations at homes and businesses. The commission put DyoCore’s SolAir turbine on its list of eligible equipment so that projects using the turbine would be eligible to claim rebates.

Then something peculiar happened. The commission said it was “flooded with more than 1,000 rebate” applications involving DyoCore’s turbines. The rebates are calculated based on the expected power output of the turbines. The performance claim made by DyoCore would make it possible for each installation to get up to $28,000 in rebates, and that amount would cover the full cost of the project and make the system essentially free to its owner, the commission said.

The commission suspended the ERP in March this year after receiving many applications involving DyoCore’s gear and noticed that many of the projects were going to be planted in places with poor wind sources. The commission directed KEMA to look into data submitted by DyoCore. The commission also began tightening the rules for manufacturers to get their equipment on the list.

Before the program suspension, manufacturers either submit their own filed performance data or get an outside organization to certify the equipment conforms to an international electrical equipment code. KEMA is charged with making sure all necessary documents are provided before the equipment is put on the list, said Amy Morgan, a spokeswoman for the commission. KEMA accepted DyoCore’s performance claim and added the turbine to the list.

Photo by DyoCore

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When a utility drops a contract after several years, it’s a big deal and could indicate that the project might have serious problems. The utility originally signed a contract in 2005 to buy 300 MW of power from the project, and the contract included options to get more power from the same project. After years of development work, Tessera finally clinched a license from the California Energy Commission last September.

But after scoring the energy commission license, Tessera sold the project, along with another 850 MW proposal, after it emerged that its parent company, NTR, had posted huge losses and was having trouble lining up financing for the two projects. It probably didn’t help that the Imperial Valley project became a target of a lawsuit around the time when NTR was facing financial woes.

AES has been tight-lipped about its plans for the Imperial Valley Solar project. Its spokeswoman, Patty Rollin, has repeatedly said the company won’t comment on the progress of the project until the project has secured financing or begun construction. The original plan by Tessera was to use a type of concentrating solar thermal (CSP) technology developed by its sister company, Stirling Energy Systems. The technology uses sunlight to heat and expand hydrogen gas to run Stirling engines, which then drive an electricity generator.

Last week, AES sent the energy commission a letter asking it to revoke the license for the Imperial Valley project. The company said it was planning to use photovoltaic (PV) technology instead of Stirling engines, and as a result, the project would no longer be under the authority of the energy commission. The energy commission issues licenses only for solar thermal power projects over 50 MW, regardless of whether the projects will be located on public or private land. But it doesn’t oversee solar power plant proposals that will use PV technology, which refers to solar panels. Typically a county or city would be the primary permitting agency; a PV project that will be built on public land will instead require a federal permit.

AES then sent another letter this week asking the energy commission to disregard its letter it sent last week. Energy commission spokeswoman Sandy Louey referred questions about the second letter to AES. She did say AES has until June 30, 2011, to ask the energy commission to revoke the license. If the company doesn’t, then the energy commission will charge AES a $25,000 annual compliance fee.

The Imperial Valley project has been set to be built on land overseen by the federal Bureau of Land Management. BLM spokeswoman Erin Curtis said the company has told the BLM that it plans to send a revised project proposal shortly.

A decision to use PV technology instead of Stiring engines wouldn’t be surprising. The price of solar panels has dropped more than half in the past two years, and that has prompted developers who didn’t consider solar panels before to change their minds.

Solar Trust of America, a solar thermal power plant developer, recently announced a joint venture with SolarHybrid to develop projects using solar panels. SolarReserve, another solar thermal power plant developer, has teamed up with GCL-Poly Energy’s GCL Solar Energy to build solar panel–based projects. Solar Trust isn’t only interested in developing stand-alone PV power plants; the company also wants to place solar panels next to solar thermal fields, because the two technologies can complement each other, said Solar Trust’s CEO, Uwe T. Schmidt.

K Road Power, the buyer of Tessera’s 850MW project called Calico Solar, has said it would use solar panels for most of the power plant and rely on Stirling engines for the rest. Although Tessera sold Calico as a 850MW project because it came with a grid interconnection agreement for that generation capacity, the company’s license for building it in California limits the capacity to 663.5MW. Tessera had a contract to sell power from Calico to Southern California Edison. Edison canceled the contract last December.

Image courtesy of Valerie Everett via Flickr

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The lawsuit contends that federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, didn’t do enough of an environmental review of the 392-megawatt project before approving it last fall. The environmental group wants the agencies to withdraw their approvals.

BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs said the company has no comment about the lawsuit since it didn’t name the company as a defendant. BrightSource broke ground on Ivanpah last October.

The legal challenge is the latest to highlight the recurring opposition by some environmental groups several solar energy projects that are set to rise in California’s desert in the next few years. The federal government approved nine solar projects in western United States last year.

The California Energy Commission approved nine projects within four months last year, and some of the projects are part of the nine permitted by the federal government within months last year. The speed of approval was so swift that we thought lawsuits seemed inevitable.

Both state and federal agencies said they wanted to approve the projects before Dec. 31, 2010, when a federal grant program that subsidizes renewable energy projects was set to expire. Congress ended up extending the program for another year in late December.

Many of these projects are due to deliver electricity to California’s investor-owned utilities, which need to have 20 percent of their energy supplies from renewable sources by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020. Lawmakers also see these projects as job creators.

The Sierra Club filed a lawsuit against the California Energy Commission last month over the approval of a Calico Solar project. The lawsuit argued that the commission didn’t do enough to minimize the project’s impact on the desert wildlife. Calico was under development by Tessera Solar, which sold it recently to K Road Sun after having trouble raising enough money to build it. K Road plans to line up money and start construction of the 850-megawatt project this year, its spokesman told us.

American Indian tribes also have filed similar legal challenges. A group called La Cuna de Aztlan, which includes Chemehuevi and Apache tribes, filed a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s approval of six solar farms (including Ivanpah). The group said the government didn’t do enough to protect cultural resources, such as burial sites, while reviewing the solar projects.

Meanwhile, the Quechan Indian Tribe won a temporary injunction in federal court last month to halt the development of the 709-megawatt Imperial Valley solar project, also by Tessera. The tribe said the federal government failed to adequately consult with the tribe about the project’s impact on burial grounds before approving the project.

A group that includes the Audubon Society also is suing to stop a proposed project by Solargen in central California, Reuters reported.

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So on the day of his inauguration, we ask — will Jerry Brown deliver on his promises, and break new ground in support for clean energy and energy efficiency? Or will the state’s budgetary crises and economic troubles put a crimp in Brown’s lofty goals? The new Governor will have big shoes to fill, given Schwarzenegger signed into law AB32, the state’s climate change bill, which he calls one of his biggest achievements of his term.

First of all, it’s important to note that Brown’s green track record goes back a long way. Back in 1975, when Brown first took office (replacing another movie star governor, Ronald Reagan), he instituted a series of green energy policies, including one of the first tax incentives for rooftop solar power, the first state appliance efficiency standards and the first green building codes.

While solar panels didn’t sprout on every rooftop, the state’s efficiency measures have kept per-capita energy consumption level, as compared to rising consumption in every other state.

In his more recent political incarnation as California Attorney General, Brown pushed to bring the state’s stringent clean air standards to a national stage, and co-sponsored a bill that would require the state’s big utilities to install energy storage systems to help manage intermittent renewable energy like solar and wind power.

Brown also came out early and strong in favor of AB32. During the gubernatorial elections, his Republican opponent and eBay billionaire Meg Whitman had supported a moratorium on the bill’s implementation, putting her on the outs with some of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital investors. Whether that helped lead to her defeat is hard to say — but the defeat of an oil industry-backed ballot initiative that would have indefinitely postponed AB32 may be evidence that the state’s voters favor the idea that energy and climate regulations will help create new jobs, rather than destroy jobs.

Brown certainly has promised that green regulations will lead to green jobs — 500,000 of them, according to an eight-point energy and environmental investment plan he unveiled in June. The plan includes a call for 12,000 MW of rooftop solar panels, 8,000 MW of utility-scale solar thermal power, and a push at the state level to ease permitting and construction of high-voltage transmission lines that will be needed to carry those far-off desert and mountain clean power resources to population centers on the coast. To help get it all done, he’s pledged to create the post of renewable energy czar whose task will be to ensure green goals and deadlines are met.

Just how Brown intends to achieve these goals remains to be seen, but certainly it won’t be easy. While California has been approving massive amounts of new utility-scale solar projects in recent months, it’s also seen the collapse of one major solar thermal project planned by Tessera Solar, showing the difficulty that such huge projects have in financing themselves in such a tough economic environment.

As for Brown’s promise to cut the time needed to plan and build new transmission lines to fewer than three years, that may well run afoul of legal opposition from environmental and NIMBY groups.

While Brown’s big solar power and energy czar plans have gotten most of the attention, several less-notices pieces of his energy plan may be easier to achieve. Those include calls for 6,500 MW of cogeneration, or combined heat and power projects, as well as more stringent regulations on appliance efficiency and building efficiency.

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