Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies

This renewal grant to the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies would support its work to balance renewable energy development and habitat protection in the California desert. The Center will bring together representatives of the renewable energy industry, conservation groups, and utilities to craft recommendations on how best to site renewable energy development, and what areas of the desert need to be set aside for sensitive species protection. The recommendations will be provided to state and federal agencies tasked with planning for solar development and conservation in the desert.

The California desert is home to some of the most ecologically important areas in the West. It is also one of the best locations for large-scale solar energy development. Over the last year, with Foundation support, representatives of the solar industry and conservation groups successfully helped the Department of Interior create a new federal solar development program on public lands. This grant would build on that success, aiming to create a similar state-level program in California that would site solar development to minimize impacts to fragile desert areas. The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies would facilitate discussions between industry and conservationists and provide their recommendations to state agencies tasked with planning for solar development and conservation in the desert.

The Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies is a partnership of environmental groups and clean-energy companies working together on climate change, renewable energy, and energy efficiency policies. Development of renewable energy generation in California is accelerating, with an almost 20 percent increase in 2009. This progress must continue if California is going to meet the nation's most aggressive state renewable energy standard, which requires utilities to purchase 33 percent of their power from renewable resources by 2020. At the same time, California's pioneering policies to address climate change are under attack. CEERT's leadership on these fronts-accelerating renewable development and defending the state's climate-change policies-is critical over the coming years.