ARCO built the place in the early 80s because of the late 70s energy crisis... *********** The response to the '70s energy crisis, though it was about oil, included the formation of PURPA:
The Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA) is a law, passed in 1978 by the United States Congress as part of the National Energy Act. It is meant to promote greater use of domestic renewable energy. The law forced regulated, natural monopoly electric utilities to buy power from other more efficient producers, if that cost was less than the utility's own "avoided cost" rate to the consumer; the avoided cost rate was the additional costs that the electric utility would incur if it generated the required power itself, or if available, could purchase its demand requirements from another source. At the time generally, where demand was growing, this was considered to be the construction and fossil fuel costs incurred in the operation of another thermal power plant. This free market approach presented investment opportunity and government encouragement [$$$] for more development of environment-friendly, renewable energy projects and technologies; the law created a market in which non-utility Independent Power Producers developed, and some energy market players failed. http://www.ask.com/wiki/Public_Utility_Regulatory_Policies_Act So when the govt funds ran out [the utilities didn't do this out of the goodness of their hearts] the big RE displays were dismantled and it was back to business as usual. The lesson learned by the utilities was that, with a significantly lower cost, RE could be profitable. We have witnessed this around the world thx first to the wind industry and now to China for the collapse of the PV market. The key to the weak success of the PV industry was largely due to the definition of "avoided cost" which only includes the cost in dollars to generate the electricity. The definition clearly avoids references to any other secondary financial benefits like no emissions from burning dirty stuff to generate electric power. I recall a recent California legislative battle to redefine avoided cost to include something to do with geothermal [?] where the utilities lost the battle but the final outcome is still up in the air.
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