Dive Brief:

• Critics of a gas plant planned in southern California expect a court decision soon on whether its lawsuit will be allowed to move forward, potentially setting up challenges to a handful of plants in the region which green energy advocates say are unnecessary.
• A nonprofit known as Protect Our Communities in December asked California's First Appellate District Court to order a review of the 500 MW Carlsbad Energy Center, arguing San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) does not really need the new gas generation to meet clean energy goals.
• The San Diego Union-Tribune reports a decision from the court is due any day, and allowing the challenge could birth similar actions against at least three other planned facilities.

Dive Insight:

California has aggressive clean energy goals, aiming for 50% clean energy by 2030. But utilities say meeting those goals will mean more flexible gas-fired power is necessary, while green advocates argue renewables and batteries can get the job done. 

That's the crux of the issue in southern California, where Protect Our Communities believes SDG&E pushed the Carlsbad project through the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) last year by overinflating its need for new capacity and pressing another plant, the Encina Power Station, into an unneeded retirement.

The group in its December petition argued the "the urgency upon which the PUC based its decision is a fiction."

"The Encina plant will not retire before 2018 if it is truly needed to maintain electrical system reliability. The PUC has the power to make sure of this. Encina certainly can continue to operate long enough to bridge any reliability gap that may occur (however unlikely it is) while SDG&E solicits competing—and
cleaner—generation offers, as it is required to do by law," the group said.

The CPUC backed the proposed Carlsbad plant last summer aimed to replace Encina with 500 MW of gas and 100 MW of renewable energy or energy storage. 

The Union-Tribune reports that should the court allow Protect Our Communities' challenge to move ahead, it will spur additional lawsuits against three projects: the Huntington Beach Energy Project, the Alamitos Energy Center and the Stanton Energy Reliability Center. 

But an SDG&E spokesperson told the newspaper it is not as simple as just not building the gas plant. “You can’t really say that you need all of this and none of that,” said Stephanie Donovan. “We need wind and solar and storage, and the flexibility of the quick-start (gas-fired) power plant.”