California utilities crank up green power race

Don’t blame your utility company if your home or office isn’t as green as you’d like it to be. Each utility serving the Sacramento region — Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the Sacramento Municipal Utility District and Roseville Electric — offers green programs, some dating back more than 30 years.

As for which utility is the greenest, it’s tough to find many measurements that apply to three very different organizations. PG&E is a giant investor-owned utility selling both electricity and natural gas. SMUD is a large municipal utility selling only electricity. Roseville Electric is a small, city-owned electric utility.

That means different resources and different types of oversight. The California Public Utilities Commission regulates PG&E but not the other two, for instance, so mandates by the CPUC don’t apply to SMUD or Roseville.

The Center for Resource Solutions, based in San Francisco, likes to evaluate electric utilities by how much juice is generated from renewable sources, such as solar, wind, geothermal and some types of water power.

Big hydroelectric projects create their own environmental headaches such as producing more methane and interfering with salmon spawning, center spokesman Jeff Swenerton.

So while PG&E can boast that about half of its power comes from carbon-free sources, the mix includes large hydro and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. Take those out of the mix, and renewable energy accounts for 14.5 percent, PG&E spokesman Brian Swanson said. PG&E has signed contracts to raise that to 20 percent eventually.

Roseville Electric gets 30 percent of its power from renewables if big hydro is counted, or 10 percent if it’s not. It has set a goal of 20 percent without large hydro.

Read the full story in the Sacramento Business Journal.