Green energy is only as good as how you’re able to use it. We talk a lot about smart grids and new ways to store electricity so that unused energy doesn’t go wasted, so when we got wind of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s new plan, we can vouch that this guy knows his green energy. Energy-wise Schwarzenegger’s time as governor has been very sustainable, and he’s just made it law that all California power providers must have energy stored on hand so that when the sun goes down or the wind dies, excess clean power that has been captured can be used in the interim.
California has mandated some pretty hefty green energy standards for the next few decades. The state is now on the cutting edge of the American sustainable power industry, and it looks like Governor Schwarzenegger’s plans will keep it that way. This latest mandate will ensure that individuals and companies looking into renewable energy storage — like this guy who is using Tesla car batteries to store solar power near San Francisco — will have a market to sell their products as well as a guarantee that this market will be sustained for decades to come.
However, it seems there is a problem facing energy companies with the new law. The term ‘energy storage’ has yet to be defined and could encompass a broad range of technologies. The storage technology “shares aspects of both transmission, distribution, generation — at least in the way those things are defined technically,” said Cliff Rechtschaffen, a special assistant to California’s attorney general. Now that the law is in place, regulators will have the task of defining what storage really means, and it is only then “there will be more market certainty about what storage is and what you use it for.”
Via The New York Times
[...] Seeing that the state is the biggest proponent of green technology — the Governator recently mandated green energy storage for utilities and the state is an early adopter of green tech like these quick charging [...]