An expert in the state’s energy grid explains how the state is faring amid federal cuts.
May 5, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO—As families settled into their evening routines in late March, cooking dinner on electric stoves and flipping on their TV for the newest binge watch, the state’s energy grid was working hard.
For the first time, California discharged just over 12,000 megawatts, equivalent to 12 large nuclear plants, of energy from its battery arrays. That’s enough to meet over 40 percent of the state’s energy demand.
California’s grid is in a continued state of transition. While more than more than 60 percent of the state’s electricity generation came from carbon-free sources last year, momentum toward bridging the last gap is fraught, as President Trump takes aim at offshore wind, orders oil pipelines to reopen and retires renewable energy tax credits.
Ed Smeloff, an energy consultant with GridLab and expert in transmission planning in California, closely follows grid statistics week by week. Inside Climate News talked with Smeloff to discuss if California’s energy transition can weather the storm. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Here is the beginning of the interview:
CLAIRE BARBER: Can you give me a lay of the land of how California’s renewable energy market has been performing recently? What are the changes?
ED SMELOFF: The most remarkable change in the California energy market has been the very rapid addition of grid-connected batteries and the use of those batteries to provide peak demand capacity. California is transitioning fairly quickly from using primarily natural gas resources to now using batteries. The batteries are [used] during the peak period, which is in the evening, typically around seven o’clock, producing as much as 40 percent of the peak capacity requirements. That’s a pretty remarkable achievement in a short period of time.
Snip from the end of the interview:
BARBER: How has the AI data center thing, for lack of a better word, impacted the renewable sector?
SMELOFF: I think generally it’s positive for the renewable sector. Many of the AI developers want to be able to brand themselves as being clean energy. In California, most of the AI development is going on in Silicon Valley in the South Bay area. The challenge really is that the Bay Area’s transmission system was built 50 years ago, longer, and it was not built for these loads. It’s going to require lots of upgrades to be able to accommodate the amount of load.
There’s still a lot of uncertainty about how much data center growth is going to occur. Right now, the Energy Commission says we expect about 4,000 megawatts of load from data centers by 2035. But if you look at the load, interconnection queue, there’s as much as 16,000. Now, some of them are phantom projects. They won’t show up or won’t get completed, but there’s a big range of potential load. The higher number, if it comes to fruition, is going to drive a lot more transmission development as well as renewable energy development.
BARBER: Are there any specific energy projects you are excited about?
SMELOFF: This project in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, in the Westlands Water District, is certainly something to keep an eye on. It’s called the Valley Clean Infrastructure Project, VCIP. It’s being developed by a group called Golden State Clean Energy, in conjunction with the Westland Waters District.
Twenty-one gigawatts. We haven’t seen anything in the United States on that scale. How that’s done, in a manner that’s compatible with community values, is going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.
BARBER: Twenty-one gigawatts … for folks who have no idea what that means, how much energy is that?
SMELOFF: That would be a doubling of the solar energy that’s already online in California.
Read the rest of the interview in the link below: