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Energy Terms | |
| Glossary of Energy Terms | |
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| There are 14 entries in the glossary. | ||
| Pages: 1 | ||
| Term | Definition | |
| CALIFORNIA ENERGY COMMISSION | The state agency established by the
Warren-Alquist State
Energy Resources Conservation and Development Act in 1974 (Public
Resources Code, Sections 25000 et seq.) responsible for energy policy. The Energy
Commission's five major areas of responsibilities are:
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| CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY ACT | (CEQA - pronounced See' quah) Enacted in 1970 and amended through 1983, established state policy to maintain a high-quality environment in California and set up regulations to inhibit degradation of the environment. | |
| CALIFORNIA PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION | (CPUC) - A state agency created by constitutional amendment in 1911 to regulate the rates and services of more than 1,500 privately owned utilities and 20,000 transportation companies. The CPUC is an administrative agency that exercises both legislative and judicial powers; its decisions and orders may be appealed only to the California Supreme Court. The major duties of the CPUC are to regulate privately owned utilities, securing adequate service to the public at rates that are just and reasonable both to customers and shareholders of the utilities; including rates, electricity transmission lines and natural gas pipelines. The CPUC also provides electricity and natural gas forecasting, and analysis and planning of energy supply and resources. Its main headquarters are in San Francisco. | |
| CAPACITY | The amount of electric power for which a
generating unit, generating station, or other electrical
apparatus is rated either by the user or manufacturer. The
term is also used for the total volume of natural gas that
can flow through a pipeline over a given amount of time,
considering such factors as compression and pipeline
size. There are various types of electricity capacity.:
Installed (or Nameplate) Capacity: The total manufacturer-rated capacities of equipment such as turbines, generators, condensers, transformers, and other system components. Peaking Capacity: The capacity of generating equipment intended for operation during the hours of highest daily, weekly or seasonal loads. Purchased Capacity: The amount of energy and capacity available for purchase from outside the system Reserve Capacity: Extra generating capacity available to meet peak or abnormally high demands for power and to generate power during scheduled or unscheduled outages. Units available for service, but not maintained at operating temperature, are termed "cold." those units ready and available for service, though not in actual operation, are termed "hot." | |
| CAPACITY FACTOR | A percentage that tells how much of a power plant's capacity is used over time. For example, typical plant capacity factors range as high as 80 percent for geothermal and 70 percent for cogeneration. | |
| CAPACITY RELEASE | A secondary market for capacity that is contracted by a customer which is not using all of its capacity. | |
| CARBON DIOXIDE | A colorless, odorless, non-poisonous gas that is a normal part of the air. Carbon dioxide, also called CO2, is exhaled by humans and animals and is absorbed by green growing things and by the sea. | |
| CFCs | (CHLOROFLUOROCARBONS or CHLORINATED FLUOROCARBONS) - A family of artificially produced chemicals receiving much attention for their role in stratospheric ozone depletion. On a per molecule basis, these chemicals are several thousand times more effective as greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. Since they were introduced in the mid-1930s, CFCs have been used as refrigerants, solvents and in the production of foam material. The 1987 Montreal protocol on CFCs seeks to reduce their production by one-half by the year 1998. | |
| CLEAN FUEL VEHICLE | is frequently incorrectly used interchangeably with "alternative fuel vehicle." Generally, refers to vehicles that use low-emission, clean-burning fuels. Public Resources Code Section 25326 defines clean fuels, for purposes of the section only, as fuels designated by ARB for use in LEVs, ULEVs or ZEVs and include, but are not limited to, electricity, ethanol, hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas, methanol, natural gas, and reformulated gasoline. | |
| Climate Change | Climate change refers to any significant change in measures of climate (such as temperature, precipitation, or wind) lasting for an extended period (decades or longer). Climate change may result from:
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| Coal | Coal is formed from plant and animal matter that has been subjected to geologic heat and pressure, transformed over millions of years into hard black solids. Because coal is a readily available resource in the United States, coal power plants provide about half of the nation's electricity. However, coal-fired power plants generally cause more pollution per unit of electricity than any other fuel. Most coal plants are required to have several pollution control devices to reduce the amount of pollutants that are released into the air from burning the coal. These controls have played an important role in cleaning up air quality in many areas of the country. | |
| COAL CONVERSION | Changing coal into synthetic gas or liquid fuels. See GASIFICATION. | |
| COGENERATION | Cogeneration means the sequential use of energy for the
production of electrical and useful thermal energy. The sequence
can be thermal use followed by power production or the reverse,
subject to the following standards: (a) At least 5 percent of the cogeneration project's total annual energy output shall be in the form of useful thermal energy. (b) Where useful thermal energy follows power production, the useful annual power output plus one-half the useful annual thermal energy output equals not less than 42.5 percent of any natural gas and oil energy input. | |
| Combined Heat and Power | Combined heat and power (CHP), also known as cogeneration, is an efficient, clean, and reliable approach to generating power and thermal energy from a single fuel source. CHP is not a specific technology but an application of technologies to meet an energy user's needs. CHP systems achieve typical effective electric efficiencies of 50 to 80 percent — a dramatic improvement over the average efficiency of separate heat and power. Since CHP is highly efficient, it reduces traditional air pollutants and carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas associated with climate change. Visit EPA's Combined Heat and Power
Partnership web site for additional information. | |
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