Humboldt County is on its way to being a pioneer in the quest for local energy self-sufficiency. The California
Energy Commission has awarded a local Humboldt partnership a $200,000 grant from the CEC's Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program. The purpose of this grant is to support the development of homegrown, renewable energy resources in Humboldt County, and to promote Humboldt County as a renewable energy secure community (RESCO).
The outcome of this project is a strategic plan that will empower Humboldt County to develop its renewable energy resources, and to use these resources in meeting 75% to 100% of the county’s electricity demand, as well as a significant fraction of its heating and transportation needs. The plan will examine a full range of renewable energy resources, energy efficiency and demand management options, and energy storage and conversion technologies. These considerations will be balanced to best capture the associated environmental, economic, and social benefits for Humboldt County.
The RESCO project brings together a highly qualified public-private partnership with multi-disciplinary representation. This partnership includes the Redwood Coast Energy Authority (RCEA), a Joint Powers Authority that will oversee the project, provide technical and strategic assistance, and engage in efforts to explore collaborative partnership opportunities; the Schatz Energy Research Center (SERC) at Humboldt State University, which will conduct engineering and economic analyses; and Pacific Gas and Electric Company, which will provide in-kind technical assistance and energy data within Humboldt County.
The CEC grant will be supplemented by a $38,800 grant recently awarded by the local Headwaters Fund to the Schatz Energy Center to carry out the economic analysis portion of the work.
Background
Humboldt County has a long history of interest in developing its renewable energy resources. In the 1980s, the City of Arcata created a program to finance the installation of solar hot water systems on local residences and Humboldt County boasted the largest concentration of off-grid solar electric systems in the country. In recent years Humboldt County residents have installed grid-connected solar electric systems at a per capita rate three times greater than the state of California as a whole. Local cities and the County are currently developing greenhouse gas reduction plans that set aggressive goals to combat climate change. The residents of Humboldt County now realize there are greater opportunities for a more comprehensive and integrated use of the area’s renewable energy resources.
Humboldt County is fortunate to possess vast renewable energy resources in the form of wind, biomass, and wave, and, to a lesser extent, small hydro, solar energy, biogas, and others. For more than twenty years the county has received nearly half its electricity from local, biomass-fired power plants. In addition, Humboldt County is geographically isolated and the normally available capacity of the transmission lines (estimated at 70 MW) that connect the county to the larger grid is less than half of the County’s peak electrical demand (168 MW in 2007 and 2008). For this reason, it is essential that Humboldt County incorporate and utilize its local renewable resources for meeting the community's energy demands. To do so will maximze Humboldt County's ability to behave as a micro-grid, or "energy island", where electrical loads and resources can and must be well balanced.
The RESCO project is a natural follow-up to the Humboldt County Energy Element report prepared by SERC, RCEA and others in 2005. The report determined that renewable energy resources in Humboldt County are more than adequate to meet all of our energy needs.
The CEC grant will fund the detailed engineering and economic analyses and development of a strategic action plan
for the use of our local renewable energy resources. The RESCO project will empower Humboldt County and other
communities to move toward a renewable energy secure future.
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