Under the leadership of David Crane, NRG is running a major campaign to convince America that when it comes to our fossil fuel powered electric system, there’s another way. NRG’s initiative champions rooftop solar and renewables as cost-effective and clean technology disrupting ossified and dirty utilities across the country.
Through this campaign, Crane has built a reputation for himself as a visionary, speaking truths other utility CEOs are afraid to mutter. His perceived candor garners cheers from the clean-tech and environmental communities. After so many years dealing with the fossil fuel industry, just reading his quotes can be a breath of fresh air. "He gets it!"
A closer look at NRG's portfolio and its advocacy in regulatory bodies reveals a very different reality. Nowhere is NRG's green façade more quickly chipped away than in California. Here, NRG is aggressively seeking to lock in new fossil-fuel commitments for the next several decades at the expense of clean energy solutions NRG pretends to promote.
Shutting Out Clean Energy with Carlsbad:
Over the last two years, utilities, environmental advocates, consumer groups, and others have heatedly debated how to replace the shuttered 2.2 gigawatt San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. The Sierra Club laid down the marker that a carbon-free resource should be replaced with more carbon-free resources. We've dedicated organizing staff, communications strategists, and a hefty dose of attorney time to fighting for this outcome. While the final decision did not mandate full replacement by clean energy, it did require prioritization and competition by clean energy before resorting to fossil fuels. NRG has ignored all this, and together with SDG&E, is seeking to muscle through approval of a contract for its proposed 600 MW Carlsbad gas plant prior to a competitive bidding process to evaluate clean energy.
Pushing Fossil Fuel Back-Up Generation ("BUGs") as "Clean" Demand Response:
In the case of Southern California Edison ("SCE"), NRG was selected to provide 70 MW of demand response to help meet minimum clean energy procurement as part of SCE's replacement for San Onofre. While on the surface it appeared that NRG was proposing clean energy, the Sierra Club uncovered their real plans, which turned out to be fossil fuel back-up generation (BUGs). Rather than reduce energy demand, NRG's demand response projects would simply go off-grid and turn on highly polluting generators, further impairing Southern California's worst-in-nation air quality. Adding insult to injury, this procurement (which the Sierra Club is opposing) was intended to be limited to clean energy. By pushing BUGs, NRG is taking away opportunities from the many clean energy solutions to meet Southern California's energy needs and pursuing its fossil fuel agenda.
Proposing a New Gas Plant in a Coastal Floodplain Highly Vulnerable to Climate Impacts:
NRG is not only exacerbating the climate crisis, but it is also blind to its foreseeable impacts. NRG has proposed a new gas plant in a highly vulnerable area of the California coast in Ventura county. A detailed mapping project by the Nature Conservancy shows future flooding due to sea level rise, erosion and storm surges. Results from mapping by Coastal Resilience Ventura show existing risks in coastal Ventura County that will increase over time. The site of NRG's new proposed 260 MW gas plant is already within flood inundation zones and will become more at risk under conservative model projections. Below is an overlay of projected wave impacts during a large storm event in 2030, only mid-way through the proposed contract's lifespan, under a medium sea level rise scenario. As illustrated in this map, the project site would be devastated. 
Siting costly new long-term infrastructure in a coastal floodplain is directly at odds with California's adaptation policy and poses significant reliability and environmental risks that the public, not NRG, would assume.
Running Some of the Oldest, Dirtiest Gas Plants in the State:
NRG isn't just attempting to lock in the next generation of dirty gas plants; it's operating some of the oldest and dirtiest plants in the state. Take for example, the 50-year-old Etiwanda Generating Station. Etiwanda is located in San Bernardino County, which is one of the most polluted regions of the entire county. According to California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s environmental justice screening tool, the community around Etiwanda is one of the most polluted and overburdened in the entire state – ranking in the 91-95% percentile. This old and dirty power plant isn’t helping and should have retired years ago. In total, NRG has 7,000 megawatts of gas running in the state today, with nearly 1,000 MW more in the project pipeline (as noted above).
It's hard to find any "carbon morality," to borrow a phrase from Crane, in any of the above. What is particularly frustrating is that Crane and NRG’s "vision" could be tailor made for this moment were the vision sincere. San Onofre’s retirement drove an exciting debate about how a mix of local clean energy, energy storage, new efficiency measures and more could offset a massive power plant. This debate unfolded as Crane called for new thinking within the utility sector. If you believe NRG, the company should be better positioned than anyone to capitalize on the minor crisis in California and implement its new vision.
Look, in one sense, we need more David Cranes. If only other companies focused its public relations resources telling the story of clean energy’s meteoric rise and the cost savings to the families going solar. We need more leaders challenging the dirty status quo in the utility sector. But Crane isn't living up to his own promises. Behind a storefront of solar panels is a warehouse full of dirty coal and gas.
It's time for action that matches the talk. If NRG is going to be a different kind of company, California is perfect place to start. We need more companies that can implement the solutions front and center in NRG's marketing campaign. NRG can still turn the page and embrace the company it claims to be here in California. We're calling on Crane to halt further investments in fossil fuels in California and commit to a timeline for retiring NRG's oldest gas plants, like Etiwanda. Thanks in part to campaigns like My Generation, there's never been a larger market for clean energy solutions. It's past time for Crane and NRG to start actually investing in it.
-- Evan Gillespie, deputy director for the Beyond Coal campaign's Western Region