January 12 (Renewables Now) - The US state of California plans to allocate USD 2 billion (EUR 1.76bn) from its 2022-2024 budget to back clean energy investments, including projects promoting offshore wind and green hydrogen production.

California’s Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday released a proposal for the state’s budget in the next two fiscal years that puts a major focus on clean energy technologies in order to support the state’s ultimate goal of having 100% its electricity come from clean energy sources by 2045.

In 2022-2023, some USD 45 million will be set aside to create an offshore wind infrastructure programme that aims to spur the development of offshore wind projects in federal waters off California, while USD 100 million is earmarked for a general fund supporting the use and production of green hydrogen.

A total of USD 380 million will be disbursed over the two-year period to promote investments in long-duration energy storage capacity so as to improve the reliability of the state’s electricity network. The first year will see USD 140 million of funds to be awarded, while the remaining USD 240 million will be allocated in the following fiscal year. Industrial decarbonisation projects will get USD 210 million over the two years.

Separately, the budget includes a proposal to provide a USD-6.1-million package in 2022 to speed up the adoption of zero-emission vehicles.

More than USD 962 million will go to a general fund supporting the decarbonisation of buildings through energy efficiency projects. The funding is intended for the entire two-year period.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.880)

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