By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

According to a report from Bloomberg, natural gas is going to run into significant price competition from solar+storage in the coming years – perhaps even eliminating the need for new natural gas plants in parts of the American Southwest.

The report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance advances a story SolarWakeup has been telling you about for months, which is that new natural gas-fired plants are increasingly being seen as unnecessary as the costs of solar+storage, especially at the utility-scale level, continue to come down.

Prices are so low, in fact, that Bloomberg predicts solar+storage will replace nearly 7 GW of coal-fired generation in the region – but that’s not all.

This won’t be contained to the Southwest,” said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based analyst at BNEF in the article. “This is spreading and will continue to spread.”

Bloomberg offers the following example:

For example, a 100-megawatt solar farm that goes into service in Arizona in 2021, coupled with a 25-megawatt storage system with four hours of capacity, will be able to provide power for $36 a megawatt-hour, according to BNEF. That’s well below the $47 price from a new combined-cycle gas plant, according to the report.

This finding mirrors what’s going on already in California and Arizona, where public service commissions (in Arizona called the corporation commission) are already looking askance a utility requests for new natural gas plants. In the past, utilities have relied on natural gas plants to fuel their electrical grids once the sun goes down, but with battery storage coming into significant usage, natural gas is increasingly obsolete.

In California, the Public Utilities Commission has become far more unwilling to allow its utilities to build or fix natural gas plants and is insisting far more often that they produce grid support through the use of solar + storage instead. And in Arizona, the Corporation Commission told Arizona Public Service (the state’s largest utility) to throttle back its plans to build 5.3 GW of natural gas plants in its latest integrated resource plan and instead resubmit it with more renewables (read: solar) in it.

Energy storage is the key.

By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent

The state university system of California just took the aggressive renewable energy goals set at the state level and turned them up to 11. The University of California system is committed to reaching its own goal of being powered 100% by renewable energy by 2025 – 20 years before the entire state’s deadline of 2045.

The announcement is in parallel with the system’s intent to become carbon neutral the same year. According to the release, the California universities’ system has already saved $220 million with its energy efficiency programs, and continues to leverage the benefits of its solar farm in Fresno, the largest solar purchase of any university in the United States.

“From LED lighting to all-electric fleets, we are proud of the countless energy efficiency and clean energy actions we have taken to tackle climate change,” said David Phillips, UC’s associate vice president of Energy and Sustainability. “These ambitious new targets, which align with those of our student environmental leaders, will ensure that our electricity comes from clean sources, extending UC leadership in modeling sustainability solutions.”

The systems new goals go far beyond just increasing renewables, however. Among the related goals are:

• Clean energy: In addition to its 100 percent clean energy commitment by 2025, UC will endeavor to reduce its energy-use intensity (energy per square foot per year) by 2 percent year over year through more efficient measures. By 2018, the university’s own power company will provide 100 percent clean electricity to participating UC campuses.
• Green buildings: No new universities’ buildings or major renovations after June 2019, except in special circumstances, will use on-site fossil fuel combustion, such as natural gas, for space and water heating.
• Sustainable procurement: UC will use its market power to drive the availability of more sustainable products and services. Examples of new goals include 25 percent green spend and 25 percent economically and socially responsible spend. Enhanced requirements for its procurement departments and new standards for their suppliers will further support sustainable sourcing.

As usual, California is leading the way, and in this case it’s the students leading the charge. It makes one almost take stock of the future and not freak out. Almost.