California utility grid reliabilty faces questions as state phases out natural gas plants

California energy officials are making the decision to let go of three aging natural gas plants that have served as a backup for when high energy demand stresses the grid — with nothing to immediately take its place.That decision, some worry, could put the reliability of the state’s grid at risk for the sake of the state’s wider push to move away from fossil fuels toward more electricity from cleaner energy.Earlier this month, Delphine Hou, deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources energy office, said during a California Energy Commission meeting that the state’s grid reliability contracts with the plants will sunset at the end of the year.The biggest news, opinion and culture shaping California right now.

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Never miss a story That means Alamitos Generating Station in Long Beach, the Huntington Beach Generating Station and the Ormond Beach plant in Oxnard won’t likely keep operating to help out in emergency demand surges on the grid.Environmental advocates have been working for years to shut the plants down, which they say threaten marine life with the billions of gallons of water it uses to cool down.The first two plants are already confirmed to shut down, Politico reported.

The Oxnard site may be converted to a battery storage site, EdHat reported.Some experts claim the state doesn’t need the power plants thanks to rapid build-out of battery storage capabilities.The state’s consumption of natural gas is only getting lower and lower.“It is a meaningful moment,” Arne Olson, at the energy analytics firm Energy and Environmental Economics, told Politico.

“We’ve been able to add enough battery storage capability and solar capability that we might not need these old plants anymore.”But some worry that the plants — which state authorities kept open for decades to deal wit...