California is pushing hard - but not necessarily as smart as possible - in moving the dial from fossil fuels to solar and wind power. The lack of a cohesive strategy could hit consumers in the wallet. That's the warning from a nonpartisan study group that should grab Sacramento's full attention.

Price, reliability, oversight and government coordination are all concerns that bear watching as this state pushes the energy envelope. By 2020 - eight short years away - a third of California's electricity must come from solar, wind and other renewable sources, up from the present level of about 20 percent.

It's only one clean-and-green goal that the state has assigned itself. Other mandates aim to limit heat-trapping greenhouse gases and reduce tailpipe emissions. The latest addition is a buy-and-sell market for pollution permits intended to push smokestack industries to clean up.

Worthy as these goals may be, they call up a question: Can Sacramento manage the far-flung programs spread across several major agencies? California, with its ocean-to-desert landscape and huge economy, is experimenting on an enormous scale.

The study by the Little Hoover Commission suggests it is time for a single super-agency to manage these intricate but not necessarily interconnected clean-energy ideas. That idea was tried before and went nowhere. Now the stakes have risen, and it's worth considering again.

One thing the Hoover report didn't call for was abandoning the goals for renewable power. It would be a mistake to read the criticisms as an excuse to water down or abandon this state's milestone steps in meeting the challenges of energy use. California has set standards for high-mileage vehicles and efficient appliances, measures that are national models.

Amid the welter of energy-related agencies, the report focuses final responsibility on Gov. Jerry Brown, who has backed the shift to renewables. It will be up to him to weigh the wary advice of the Hoover study and make sure that its worst scenarios don't materialize.