It has been said that no one can whistle a symphony, as it takes an entire orchestra to play one. The same is true for pursuing emissions and electrification goals. Utilities alone can’t orchestrate net-zero emissions for all sectors. It’s going to take some teamwork. Here is a look at a few actions three public power utilities are taking to collaborate across their communities.
Driving Change
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California has made decarbonization of the transportation sector a priority, and the public power utility has a long list of alliances aimed toward similar goals. Among them are a local council of governments, the regional and metro air quality management districts, and the Sacramento Regional Transit District, which provides public transportation in the area. Lora Anguay, SMUD’s chief zero carbon officer, said these agencies and SMUD have worked together to develop a zero- emission vehicle strategy for California’s capital region, which also aligns with the utility’s bold goal of zero emissions by 2030.
One of the group’s biggest successes so far is a regional charging station located at the transit authority’s Power Inn light rail station. “Once it’s fully built out, it will be one of the largest DC fast charging stations in the United States,” Anguay said. Right now, there are 20 DC fast charging handles, plus charging spaces that can accommodate buses and semi-trucks. The site, which is centrally located off a major freeway, made use of transit agency land and SMUD’s expertise in building out the infrastructure to handle the load.
SMUD also is partnering with major automobile manufacturers in a managed charging initiative. “There are different ways of doing managed charging,” Anguay said. “Some solutions manage through the charger, but you can manage charging through vehicle telematics, too.” To see what works best, SMUD is working with Ford, BMW, General Motors, and Tesla in a pilot program. Ahead, the utility hopes to leverage charging load and vehicle-to-grid technology as dispatchable resources.
Another key alliance SMUD has is with the California Mobility Center, or CMC. The standalone organization was created by SMUD, Sacramento State University, and the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. Sacramento State is donating the land needed to support the development of a ramp up facility on its campus, the economic council looked for funding opportunities to support it, and SMUD supported the creation of the organization.
SMUD supported the creation of the CMC because it supports economic development in the region and offers companies with emerging technology a developmental space. “As we transition to clean energy resources, there are new entrants into the market. Having a ramp-up facility for new companies to test out their equipment or technology is important,” Anguay said. Among the companies working with the CMC is Sparkz, a new battery storage company, and Zeus Electric Chassis, a company that has developed an electric chassis cab for medium-duty trucks. Another key focus for the CMC is workforce development, with a focus on historically underserved communities, to ensure there are people skilled to work in the well-paying careers in the e-mobility sector.
In Washington state, Seattle City Light is also working on transportation electrification and has many alliances. One is with the Electric Power Research Institute, which is working on a project to map where the big loads will soon be showing up on the grid.
“Our distribution grid is in good shape for smaller-scale, personally owned electric vehicle adoption, but we’re definitely keeping an eye on electrification of our port,” said David Logsdon, director of electrification and strategic technologies. “We’ve got 4,500 trucks operating out of the port on a regular basis. That’s where medium- and heavy-duty truck electrification will come in, and that will put a lot of strain on the electric grid.”
To meet that strain, the utility has partnered with the Port of Seattle and the Northwest Seaport Alliance and is now developing the Seattle Waterfront Clean Energy Strategy.
Another big load the utility will need to serve is an all-electric fleet of buses the King County Metro transit department will soon have on the road. City Light worked with the metro transit authority and the city of Tukwila to build the city’s first bus charging station, a 52,000-square-foot facility that can charge up to nine buses at once using enough electricity to power up to 192 homes. Seattle City Light handled the infrastructure to support that load.
Big Loads, Big Opportunities
Huntsville Utilities in Alabama has been partnering with other organizations to build facilities that support electrification, too. The utility is working with its wholesale power provider, Tennessee Valley Authority, to install another charging station in town. However, Huntsville’s biggest decarbonization win came through an alliance with one of the community’s largest employers: Toyota Motor Manufacturing Alabama Inc.
“We started building our alliances with our corporate customers — our key account customers — because they have sustainability goals that they’re trying to reach, and they come to us and say, ‘Hey, how can you help us?’” said Wes Kelley, Huntsville’s president and CEO. “We always want to be a trusted energy adviser. Whether it’s creating renewable energy options for organizations or working on energy efficiency approaches, that’s where we want to be.”
When Toyota started thinking about doing a solar installation behind the meter, staff called Huntsville Utilities early on. “The project was on a smaller scale, and when we got involved, we said, ‘Let’s do something in front of the meter and do it utility-scale,’” Kelley explained.
Toyota had a convenient solar partner: Toyota Tsusho America, a multimarket, multibusiness enterprise that is a subsidiary of Toyota Group. “We partnered with Toyota directly to build solar on their land and entered into a 30-year power purchase agreement to buy what the panels produce,” Kelley said. “It’s a 30-megawatt solar installation, and Huntsville Utilities is buying all of that generation.”
The project required unusual due diligence. “It was the first time we’d done anything like this, so we had to seek an opinion from the state attorney general about our ability to enter into this contract and whether it complied with competitive bid laws in our state,” Kelley said. The utility also had to wait for archaeologists to dig through the area given concerns about the site’s history, he added.
The car manufacturer and the utility are splitting the renewable energy credits that the solar plant delivers, and Kelley said the utility will make some of those credits available to other business customers. Toyota gets to fulfill its corporate responsibility goals, while Huntsville gets a great price on 30 MWs of power. “The price of this PPA is less than our fully loaded wholesale cost with TVA, so all of our ratepayers are benefiting from this lower-cost energy,” Kelley noted.
Community Connections
Community engagement has always been a big part of public power, and electrification is bringing smart practices back into focus.
“We have deep partnerships with several community-based organizations,” said Seattle’s Logsdon. Two projects being developed with such organizations are a fleet electrification program for disadvantaged communities and EV charging for multifamily housing units.
The utility is using targeted communications to connect the programs to customers who could use them. “We try to speak to what customers care about,” said Joseph Fernandi, Seattle City Light’s director of customer energy solutions. “If we’re talking about EV charging in the multifamily sector, we talk about becoming a more attractive leasing opportunity for prospective tenants. One in four new vehicles sold in King County are EVs, so it’s something property managers should be paying attention to.”
The utility also produces webinars and other customer education tools aimed at contractors to encourage devices such as heat pumps, electric water heaters, and EV chargers in new homes.
In Sacramento, SMUD is working with the city’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to support business electrification using $1.5 million in American Rescue Plan funds. It’s also working with neighborhood associations in low-income areas. “We received $3 million in federal funding to offset electrification costs for residents in those neighborhoods,” Anguay said. “We work directly with those neighborhood associations.”
The utility and association representatives have even gone door to door to explain the programs and available funding. In addition, the utility has started hiring neighborhood ambassadors who work directly with customers and community organizations in these neighborhoods.
In Seattle, Fernandi noted that City Light gets constituents involved in projects early as well. The utility does so “to ensure we’ve got a clear understanding of the community’s priorities so that we design programs that are useful and beneficial to the communities we serve.”
He added that there’s a critical payoff from constituents to participate in projects from the inception phase on. “You can bring people along that continuum from outreach to engagement to partnership,” he said.
