Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE), a California community choice aggregator, recently released an electric vehicle infrastructure joint action plan that assesses and prioritizes future EV charging needs across local communities.
The plan outlines new SVCE programs focused on deployment of charging infrastructure needed to sustain and accelerate rapid adoption of electric vehicles, SVCE noted.
The plan describes six new programs, two that are focused on building a local electric vehicle charging support ecosystem and four focused on directly deploying infrastructure.
While sales of EVs in the Silicon Valley region are higher than the rest of the country, wider adoption of EVs is needed to meet local and state climate goals, SVCE said, noting that the plan is the result of significant research and input from many local residents, businesses, organizations and agencies that participated in stakeholder workshops, as well as customer surveys.
SVCE recently partnered with the California Energy Commission (CEC) as part of the California Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Project (CALeVIP), which works with local community partners to develop and implement regional incentive projects for charging infrastructure that supports the adoption of EVs statewide.
The CEC’s proposed CALeVIP investment for Santa Clara and San Mateo counties is $33 million working through a regional partnership with Peninsula Clean Energy, San Jose Clean Energy, City of Palo Alto Utilities and Silicon Valley Power.
The SVCE Board of Directors committed to match the CEC’s CALeVIP funding of $6 million directed to the SVCE territory for a total of $12 million in CALeVIP for SVCE customers. In total, the SVCE Board of Directors has dedicated $8 million in program funds towards EV initiatives over the course of four years, which includes the CALeVIP match. Funding for electric vehicle infrastructure investment leveraging CALeVIP funding is expected to begin in spring 2020 and span two to four years.
In addition, in order to complement the EVI plan’s foundational investments, the next SVCE “Innovation Onramp” application cycle will prioritize piloting innovative mobility solutions that take a higher-risk, higher-reward approach.
Innovation Onramp is an SVCE program that engages Silicon Valley’s innovation ecosystem in addressing key technical, market and policy barriers to achieving deep decarbonization, locally and beyond.
The program offers two stages of grant funding for proof of concept ($10,000 – $75,000) and funding for demonstrations ($50,000 – $100,000).
The full EVI Joint Action Plan is available at svcleanenergy.org/programs.
SVCE serves the majority of Santa Clara County communities, acquiring electricity on behalf of more than 270,000 residential and commercial customers. Member jurisdictions include Campbell, Cupertino, Gilroy, Los Altos, Los Altos Hills, Los Gatos, Milpitas, Monte Sereno, Morgan Hill, Mountain View, Saratoga, Sunnyvale and unincorporated Santa Clara County.
