This past weekend, PG&E joined the City of San Francisco and the World Wildlife Fund during Earth Hour - an event where cities and towns from around the world turned off their lights for an hour as a call to action against climate change. 

The brilliance behind the event was its simple statement - billions of people around the world have the tools at their disposal to make a difference in the fight against climate change.

We continue to receive calls from customers and media about the event's success.  Specifically, they want to know how much power San Francisco saved by turning off the lights for one hour?  Based on our records, we actually could not see a noticeable difference on the power grid. 

Does this mean that no energy was saved?  Absolutely not.  Certainly, many homes and businesses turned their lights off.  But when you look at the aggregated impact on the grid for that one hour, it's difficult to accurately say how much power we all saved.

Does this mean that the event was not successful?  No way.  The true measure of success is how much awareness the event brought to the impact that energy use has on climate change.  The event also highlighted a simple solution - energy efficiency.

We've been working on making energy efficiency "sexy" for our customers for almost 30 years.  I always ask myself:  how can saving money and saving the environment not be considered sexy?

We've been wildly successful providing our customers with energy efficiency programs over the past thirty years.  We've helped our customers save $22 billion and helped prevent more than 135 million tons CO2 from entering the atmosphere.  Yet, we feel like we're just scratching the surface when it comes to the things we can all be doing to reduce energy use.

Which is why we're always looking for interesting ways to make energy efficiency visible.  Last October, we participated in a similar event called Lights Out San Francisco. We also partnered with the Sierra Club to give away one million compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's) during the 2007 October Energy Awareness Month.  To date, we've pushed more than 30 million light bulbs since 2000.

Another interesting side note is that San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin recently proposed a measure to reduce energy use in the city's buildings during the night time. 

I've been looking for a clean green energy peg to mark the start tonight of the Major League Baseball season (I'm not counting the two-game Boston-Oakland series in far-off Japan last week) and the National League Washington Nationals have delivered. The National's shiny new yard in southeast Washington has received LEED Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the first major stadium in the country to achieve the certification. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.

The 41,000-seat park's green elements include:

• High-efficiency field lighting saving 21 percent over typical field lighting.
• Water-conserving plumbing fixtures saving 3.6 million gallons of water per year and reducing overall water consumption by 30 percent.
• Air-cooled chillers instead of water-cooled chillers to save another 6 million gallons of water per year.
• 100 recycling bins for fan use throughout the park.
• Recycled materials in 20 percent of the park's construction and recycling 5,500 tons of construction waste.
• A 6,300-square foot green roof of plants above a concession/toilet area beyond left field to collect rain water and minimize roof heat gain.
• Signage around the ballpark highlighting the ballpark's environmentally friendly aspects.

The new park may be the brightest part of the Nationals' 2008 season; the club - formerly the Montreal Expos - is tipped for 4th or 5th in the five-team National League East. Their opponent tonight in the nationally-televised opener is the Atlanta Braves, forecast for the middle of the division behind the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies.

Here's a "sneak peek" video tour of the park with ESPN.com's Amy Nelson:

Back home here in San Francisco, the Giants' AT&T Park will mark its second season with a solar power system of up to 120 kilowatts of green energy installed last year by PG&E in a green power partnership with the Giants. The solar energy system connects the solar panels into San Francisco's power grid to help the city achieve its goal to become the greenest city in the nation.

Play ball!

Southern California Edison will install 250 megawatts of solar panels on the roofs of commercial buildings to generate electricity for 162,000 homes, an $875 million project that SCE says will be the nation's largest solar system.

"This project will turn two square miles of unused commercial rooftops into advanced solar generating stations," John Bryson, CEO of SCE's parent company Edison International, said in a statement. "We hope to have the first solar rooftops in service by August. The sunlight power will be available to meet our largest challenge - peak demand on the hottest days."

SCE's announcement comes a day after FPL Energy said it plans to build a 250-megawatt solar thermal power station in the Mojave Desert. FPL Energy has not disclosed a buyer for the electricity but Green Wombat reported that the project will connect to the transmission grid operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Construction is expected to begin in 2009. FPL has nine solar trough plants in the Mojave Desert.

Edison said its rooftop power system will be installed during the next five years and will cover 65 million square feet of leased roofs on more than 100 buildings in the "Inland Empire" east of Los Angeles in San Bernardino and Riverside counties, the fastest-growing urban region in the United States. The project requires approval by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The rooftop system would be one of the first major projects in California for distributed generation - locating small power modules close to utility customers and feeding electricity directly into neighborhood distribution circuits, eliminating the need for new transmission cables. 

It's an interesting business model.  Recurrent Energy, a start-up in San Francisco, has had some success in the "solar as a service" space.

The announcement will also serve as a boon for solar panel manufacturers and could be a driving force in lowering the cost of photovoltaic solar energy, which has been faced with polysilicon constraints.  A controversial paper recently released by UC Berkeley's Severin Borenstein calls into question photovoltaic energy's economic benefits.

California has directed Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric and PG&E to make renewable energy 20 percent of their energy supplies by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020. Edison's energy portfolio has about 16 percent renewable power.  PG&E is currently at 12 percent and recently announced that it signed an agreement to reach 20 percent for future energy delivery to come online in the 2011-12 time frame.

PG&E is a leader in solar energy with more than 20,000 customers, representing 175 megawatts - the most of any utility in the nation. The company has added 740 megawatts of solar power to its energy portfolio, including utility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic projects. During the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative, the company committed to adding 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal electricity by 2012.

Over the next couple of days, PG&E is hosting a conference at the Pacific Energy Center to discuss how to best help the high tech industry reduce their energy use.  Leading utilities throughout the country will be sharing best practices to deal with what many technology leaders are seeing as a significant challenge - the increasing costs associated with the industry's voracious appetite for energy.

According to a recent story by InformationWeek, data center energy consumption has doubled between 2000 and 2005 and now accounts for about 1.2% of all energy consumed in the U.S.

This is a staggering amount considering the country's size and broader manufacturing capacity.  Moreover, the clustered nature of this industry means that utilities serving specific geographic locations - Silicon Valley, Austin, New England, and the Pacific Northwest - are more impacted by this phenomenon.

Serving a high density of technology customers, PG&E recognized a few years back the broader impact that the high tech industry was having on the grid.  Applying lessons learned in its 30 year energy efficiency history, they assigned Mark Bramfitt, profiled in this week's Businessweek story, to develop specific programs to help high tech companies reduce their energy use. 

In addition to creating rebate and incentive programs to replace inefficient servers with more energy friendly technology, Mark also started meeting with peers at other utilities and quickly realized that this was not just a California problem.

The result of these discussions was the creation of a nationwide coalition of utilities to discuss and coordinate energy efficiency programs for the high tech sector, focusing on data centers. 

During yesterday's California Ag Day at the Capitol, PG&E joined TV Celebrity Chef Guy Fieri to demonstrate the importance of renewable energy.

Aligning with this year's theme of "Decisions Today will be Impacting Tomorrow," PG&E, Fieri, and 20 "solar students from Plainfield Elementary in Woodland and Evergreen Elementary in Paradise cooked sweet potato fries on PG&E's solar-powered kitchen.

The solar ovens were purchased through a Bright Ideas Grant funded by the PG&E Solar Schools Program, a nationally-recognized program for teaching the value of alternative energy. The students use the ovens to bake goods and sell at fundraisers. With the money raised, the students purchase additional solar ovens that are sent to third world countries where they are used as a primary source for cooking.

I didn't personally attend the event, but I heard that the food was great and the atmosphere even better.  I hate to admit it, but I have only watched Guy's show a few times.  Apparently, he's the closest thing that gastronomy has to a rock star. 

The world would be a much better place if it was filled with people like Mike and Lynn Skutches. 

The couple, both science teachers, have committed their personal and professional resources to promoting renewable energy. 

In addition to installing solar on their home in Sonora, California, the Skutches are also launching a new campaign to educate students on solar energy with a $5,000 PG&E Solar Schools grant and a new solar panel to be installed at Soulsbyville Elementary.

Lynn is a chemistry teacher at Sonora High School and Mike is a science teacher at Soulsbyville School. 

Soulsbyville School will receive a 1 kilowatt solar generation system for the school's educational use, which is estimated to save the school about $200 per month in energy. 

While not a huge energy savings, the educational impact is significant. 

Ina recent article in the Union Democrat Mike highlighted the educational benefits. "They are simple but powerful examples of solar energy.  They get kids to appreciate the concepts, rather than just reading from a book alone."

The solar system will also be connected to the Internet, providing the students with a real time tool to see how much power is generated on a given day.

The $5,000 grant will be used to purchase materials for solar education and will help fund Solar Sonora Energy Expo.

NEW YORK - Is "carbon neutral" on your breakfast table? It was on mine this morning at a classic greasy diner on 45th Street here.Two lengthy pieces on the topic on the same day in the New York Times reinforces for me that "carbon footprints" and "carbon sequestration" and "the war against carbon" have become part of the daily conversation, and there's a lot more to come.

Today's stories focus on little Norway, a giant oil producer, and British business mogul and environmentalist Richard Branson. They share the same goal - generating net zero emissions of carbon with help from investments in energy efficiency, renewable power, and environmental projects like reforestation. Norway last year vowed to reach carbon neutrality by 2050 but now has sliced that target to 2030. Branson aims to widen his carbon-reduction efforts by making his private Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands carbon-neutral. He recently hosted Google's Larry Page, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, and other climate-concerned business and financial leaders at a global warming confab on the island.

Norway has a tough road ahead because its oil, natural gas, and mineral refining industries are big greenhouse gas emitters. Environmental groups and politicians say its carbon goal "relies too heavily on sleight-of-hand accounting and huge donations to environmental projects abroad, rather than meaningful reductions" at home, the Times says. The overseas work gives Norway credits for its emissions back home. "Any further cuts in emissions - the essential thing scientists agree is needed to stem the momentum of global warning - are likely to be painful," the story adds.

My company PG&E and many others have launched programs to reduce carbon emissions. In February, we announced the largest investments in verifiable greenhouse gas emission reductions. With these purchases, PG&E's ClimateSmart program will purchase 214,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from two of California's most pristine forests.

It's pretty clear, however, that a lot of uncertainties loom for nations, industries, institutions, environmental groups and others striving to organize environmental cooperation and make progress on carbon cuts. Branson calls the effort a "war against carbon," the Times notes. And I expect to be reading a lot more carbon coverage with my lox and onions egg scramble.

In addition to protecting the environment and energy independence, another often cited benefit of renewable energy is its potentially positive impact on the broader economy, especially on the creation of new jobs. 

A catch-all phrase used to capture all of the new positions created by the clean-tech and renewable energy industries is Green Collar Jobs.  Everyone from Governor Schwarzenegger to non profit groups like the Apollo Alliance have been highlighting the potential impact of these sectors as a catalyst for the next big wave of jobs.  A recent report by UC Berkeley indicates that California's Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) could generate 89,000 additional jobs by 2020. 

Yet, a recent blog entry by influential green business consultant, Joel Makower, questions the job creation promise by asking: "So, now that clean technology and the greening of business seem to be in full swing, where are all the jobs?"

Makower illustrates his doubts by highlighting how "most of the big companies in the clean-energy business -- the BPs, GE, and PG&E's of the world -- don't seem to be going on hiring sprees, typically creating clean-tech business units from within. And few of the start-ups are undergoing massive hiring, and when they do, they're more often in the market for engineers and other skilled professionals."

Despite his doubts, Makower does say that there is some movement on the green jobs front.  He highlights the recently held Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference in Pittsburgh, organized by the Sierra Club and the United Steelworkers union, which drew more than 900 people from business, government, nonprofits, academe, and labor unions.

Another conference worth mentioning along this vein was the California Public Utilities Commission's Advancing the New Energy Economy in California Summit held in January.  The Summit brought together the state's policy makers, business leaders, and non profit sector to identify ways to advance long-term investment, job creation, and financial growth within the green technology industry in California, with a focus on engaging low-income communities. 

During this conference, PG&E introduced PowerPathway, a new program designed to train and prepare individuals for high-paying, high-demand energy sector positions of the future.  The majority of these jobs will be technical and focus on roles held traditionally by the blue collar work force.  PowerPathway is a great example of the Green Collar Jobs phenomenon.  As we look to bring more renewable energy online, we will need to have a trained work force to build and maintain the transmission infrastructure to support these new technologies.

This is just one example of how PG&E and other companies will be meeting the state's future energy needs through Green Collar jobs.  Other examples include technicians to support and analyze the Smart Grid, including SmartMeter technology; engineers to develop new clean generation resources; and clean energy financial analysts and attorneys to negotiate renewable energy contracts, to name just a few. 

Makower also asks: "Why aren't bigger companies more engaged? Do they not foresee a need for talent in this arena? Are their labor pools overflowing? Or are they simply not tuned in to the opportunity? Any ideas?"

I can't speak for all big business, but I can say with certainty that this trend is already having a huge impact on PG&E's workforce.

The bottom line is this:  jobs related to the environment will only continue to grow.  At PG&E alone, we're already seeing a transformation of our employee base to focus more closely on environmental issues.  Positions range from our environmental policy and compliance team, communications, supply chain, government relations, regulatory relations, customer care, energy efficiency, energy procurement, and even IT.  

Today Xcel Energy announced that it was going to make Boulder, Colorado, into the nation's first Smart Grid city.  Hats off to the leadership at Xcel for making this commitment. I really admire their holistic approach.

Renewable energy gets a lot of the attention these days as a silver bullet in the fight against climate change and as a way to ensure energy independence.  Certainly, renewable energy will play a key role in both of these endeavors.

Yet, it's the less sexy technologies that will probably have the greatest impact, especially in the short term.  The true benefits of a smart grid will be in providing utility customers tools to help them make smart energy choices.  It builds upon the idea of energy efficiency and bundles it with customer service more consistent with what we traditionally find in competitive markets. 

Energy efficiency is truly the most cost efficient way to combat climate change.  In California, we treat energy efficiency as the highest priority supply side resource.  For PG&E customers, this has meant savings of $22 billion and CO2 emissions avoidance of 135 million tons.  Despite these numbers, we feel like we're just scratching the surface when it comes to energy efficiency.  A Smart Energy grid will help to bring many of these energy efficiency benefits directly to our customers.

Xcel's Smart Grid announcement is a great way of bundling these less sexy technologies into a nice marketable concept.  And in Boulder, they have a great canvas to tell their story.

PG&E has been implementing its Smart Grid strategy for the past couple of years, starting with the adoption of over 250,000 SmartMeters in Bakersfield.  When fully complete, we will have installed nearly 10 million gas and electric meters from Bakersfield to the Oregon border.

We've also started a voluntary air conditioning demand response program, called Smart AC.  We launched it last summer in the Stockton area and will soon be implementing in other hot parts of the state. 

In addition to these types of technologies, Xcel is also looking at adding smart substations and infrastructure to support distributive generation, like solar, wind, and electric vehicles. 

We recently launched an internal group within PG&E called Sustainable Communities, which is looking at a similar concept.  We're working with city planners, builders, and government leaders to collaborate on new communities and to redesign older cities to be more sustainable.  The group is in its nascent stages, but we think that it will have real potential in helping our customers, residential, government, and commercial achieve their sustainability goals.

CIO Magazine takes a lengthy look at "the greening of IT" with a focus on PG&E's efforts under Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer Patricia Lawicki. 

Stricter government regulations, rising energy costs, and growing awareness that sustainability is a real business concern are pushing technology leaders at companies to strategize how they will meet future energy demands and calls for carbon emissions date, the magazine says.

Lawicki tells the magazine electricity is "more and more part of my overall bill that I pay as a CIO." Reducing the electric bill cuts costs and frees up funds for additional IT investments.

PG&E's initiatives include measuring electricity consumption in data centers with a robotic system that pinpoints hot spots.

Here is some more information on PG&E's IT programs.

One of most interesting trends that we're seeing in the new energy economy is the convergence of the auto and utility sectors. 

The electrification of the transportation sector is looking like a very real low-carbon solution for the transportation sector. This is especially true in parts of the U.S. that are served by cleaner utilities.  On average, more than 50% of the electricity that PG&E delivers its customers comes from carbon free sources. 

In California, nearly 40% of the CO2 emissions come from the transportation sector.   Can you imagine the CO2 emissions reductions if we move from petroleum based fuels to those that are 50% carbon free or better? 

We've converted a Toyota Prius into a plug-in hybrid, which we've aptly named "Sparky" and purchased several electric vehicles to test the benefits.  We've been intensely engaged in a partnership with Tesla Motors to research smart charging technologies to get a better understanding of what types of infrastructure we'd need to invest in to realize an electric transportation sector.   

A recent study by the Oakridge Laboratory found that if cars were recharged after 10 P.M. there might not be a need for new power plants (in their "high-demand" scenario, 8 new plants are required).  We're still looking at the potential grid impact of this scenario, but this seems to be a promising outcome. 

In addition to looking at grid to vehicle applications, we're also studying the concept of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), which would treat a car as a storage device.  The car would plug-in at night and fill up with clean energy, mostly from wind that blows at night.  In the day, the car owner would use as much energy to meet their transportation needs, and could potentially sell back what energy they don't use to the utility. 

We're many years from V2G being a reality as it will require greater storage capacity, a critical mass of electric vehicles and enhanced V2G communications infrastructure, but the idea gaining lots of attention.

General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt didn't mince words at the Wall Street Journal green economics conference on Wednesday, saying the U.S. could lose ground to other countries if the federal government and big business don't get behind clean renewable energy.

A Reuters story says Immelt took on critics of federal tax credits for renewable energy such as solar panels and wind turbines, saying GE would move more business overseas if it's not wanted in the U.S. GE's "green" products include solar lighting, a hybrid locomotive, wind turbines, and water purification systems.

Immelt also said GE is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership because it wants to have a role in shaping environmental legislation rather than have it "pushed down my throat," the story said.

In February, a story in BusinessWeek, however, noted that GE and two other Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) members -- Caterpillar and Alcoa -- also were on the board of the Center for Energy & Economic Development, an organization that opposes regulations on greenhouse gas emissions.

Of note, PG&E Corporation is a founding member of the USCAP.  In addition to corporations, the group is made up of some of the world's most respected environmental groups, including the NRDC, Environmental Defense, National Wildlife Federation, and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

PG&E and all of the companies mentioned in the Businessweek story all agreed to a set of principles agreed upon by all of the USCAP members.  The principles are meant to serve as a call to action for federal policy makers to address climate change.  Within this framework, USCAP has been extremely effective as evinced by the several bills recently introduced to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 

In terms of policy implementation, yes, there are many competing agendas reflected in the multi-sector composition of USCAP's members as well as the many other business that are not a part of USCAP. 

What's clear, though, is that by participating in USCAP, these companies and environmental organizations are committed to regulatory action that will help reduce the potentially disastrous effects of climate change.  This formation of this group and its commitment marks a significant milestone in the formulation of US climate change policy.

I thought you might want to see ZDNet's Green Enterprise show on some of our renewable  energy innovations. ZDNet correspondent Sumi Das talks with Hal La Flash, PG&E's director of clean-energy technology, and discusses the utility's green programs and goals.

ZDNet highlights a wall-mounted solar power system at the San Francisco service center, a new hybrid-electric bucket truck, and emerging renewable energy from biogas to wave power.

Check out the video below.

One of the most promising renewable energy technologies that we're looking at is solar thermal energy (STE).  In 2007, we added 730 MW of STE to our portfolio through agreements with Ausra and Solel.  The company also committed to adding 1,000 additional MW of STE over the next five years during the 2007 Clinton Global Initiative in NYC.

 A recent report by Ausra, a leading solar thermal technology company and a PG&E partner, suggests that solar thermal electricity could supply a vast majority of the United States' national grid.  More, the paper states that the technology could supply a significant amount of the electricity needs of China and India as well.  To do so, Ausra says, would only require 16 hours of storage on an annual basis.

The paper also suggests that STE could replace much of the U.S. demand for oil in the transportation markets. 

Using a model to examine the California energy market, the paper argues that STE is currently the only available technology to produce base load electricity.  Ausra states that STE can meet our low carbon energy goals for two reasons:

1. STE costs are decreasing - transitioning towards the price of natural gas-generated electricity

2.  STE generation correlates 90% to California and Texas base load.

Both of these reasons are compelling and why PG&E is interested in STE. 

An issue that the paper does not bring up, and one that CA and other states will need to address before STE becomes a major source of electricity generation, is the need to build additional transmission lines to bring this energy online. 

Because of their size, STE projects require a significant amount of space.  This means that they must be sited in remote areas, like California's Mojave Desert.  The vast majority of these remote areas do not have transmission corridors, which means that the state will need to make significant investments to build the lines to bring this electricity to major population centers.

If you want to learn more about STE, Matt Wald of the NT Times recently wrote a good piece on the subject.  Todd Woody of Fortune/Green Wombat has also written extensively on the subject.  Both of these reporters seem to have a good sense of the technology, its short-comings, and its potential.

It's a busy day on the transmission front in California for Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

Reuters reports that SCE launched construction of its big Tehachapi Renewal Transmission Project to deliver 4,500 megawatts of mostly wind power to customers in Kern and Los Angeles Counties. Phase 1 is to be finished in 2009. Tehachapi is part of SCE's proposed $5 billon expansion for its high-voltage grid.

To the south, the North County Times says SDG&E's delayed Sunrise Powerlink may get a boost from a decision by the federal Department of Energy affirming "designated energy corridors" on the East and West coasts. The decision means that SDG&E could ask the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to approve the contested transmission plan if it can't win a go-ahead from the California Public Utilities Commission.

The Sunrise line would carry power from the Imperial Valley to San Diego customers but it has drawn fire from environmentalists because the route would run through the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, the largest state park in California.

PG&E's venerable Len Anderson wrote a nice piece on tidal and wave energy earlier this week and I wanted to expand a bit on tidal power.

A story in today's San Francisco Chronicle on the subject highlights the uncertainty surrounding the San Francisco Bay as a viable source of tidal energy.  The story cites a report created by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and URS, which calls into the question the project's financially feasibility.

In the story, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom counters by saying that he is still committed to looking at tidal and to making the project work.

In June 2007, PG&E joined the City and County of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Energy Company to announce a comprehensive $1.5 million study to assess the potential possibilities of harnessing the Bay's tides to create a new source of renewable energy. 

PG&E is currently in the process of researching the possibility of a tidal energy project to bring more clean energy to its customers.  The company's Web site details the steps that it's taking, including the types of measurements that the company will use to collect the tidal flow data.  The data collection phase of the research is scheduled for completion within the next couple of months. 

Following the data collection, PG&E will issue its findings and move forward with final project recommendations.  As such, it remains a bit early to make final conclusions on San Francisco Bay tidal energy potential. 

What's clear is that there are some very innovative renewable energy projects in the works throughout California, including tidal, wave, solar thermal, and cow power, among others.

FRESNO - Cow power is moooooving into California's Central Valley.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company will announce on Tuesday the first project in California to turn cow manure into commercial-grade renewable natural gas to supply the utility.

BioEnergy Solutions will will deliver up to three billion cubic feet of natural gas a year to PG&E under a contract approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. The gas will come from 5,000 cows at Vintage Dairy near the town of Riverdale in Fresno County.

"With nearly two million dairy cows in California, there is great potential for the state's agriculture and power sectors to work together to address the challenges of climate change," said Roy Kuga, vice president of energy supply at PG&E.

BioEnergy Solutions will reduce the methane emissions from the cows' manure by 70 percent using a method to "scrub" the methane to get rid of corrosive materials. Methane is a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The gas will then be piped to PG&E power plants where it will fuel the production of electricity.

This is PG&E's second biogas project and the utility is also exploring new biogas technologies through a biomethanation research project.

The PG&E press release can be found here.