Tuesday, November 9, 2021
Hybrid Meeting In-Person and via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Megan Barajas, Carole Beswick, Mike Burrows, Mark Cloud, Ken Coate, Sandra Cuellar, Kevin Dyerly, Louis Goodwin, Fran Inman, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Pam Langford, Mike Layne, Bill Lemann, Darcy McNaboe, John Mirau, Dan Murphy, Vikki Ostermann, Bansree Parikh, Catherine Pritchett, Thomas Rice, Karen Richmond, Michael Rivera, Dan Roberts, Elizabeth Romero, Kristine Scott, Patty Senecal, Paul Shimoff, Sol Teh, Eric Ustation, Ray Wolfe, Marisa Yeager and Frank Zabaleta.
Guests: LaDonna DiCamillo.
Announcements: 1) Next week will be a Zoom only meeting so that committees may meet to discuss their 2022 federal priorities. 2) Congratulations were expressed to Kristine Scott for recognition at the annual “Turning Red Tape to Red Carpet Awards” held by IEEP. 3) Mark Kaenel, Treasurer, announced that the third quarter financials are now posted on the Inland Action web site. We will end the year in an excellent position, largely because we budgeted, but did not use, funds for the this year’s trip to D.C.
Lowell King, Chair, presiding.
Motion by K. Scott/Second by T. Rice/Passed: Minutes from October 26, 2021, and November 2, 2021.
Mark Cloud introduced Aaron Dyer, Senior Projects Manager, Southern California Edison (SCE) who joined us via Zoom. As we transition to the 2045 deadline for cleaner technologies, Aaron discussed sustainability, affordability, and grid reliability for the future.
Achieving California’s ambitious climate goals is only possible by transitioning transportation to zero-emission. In addition to contributing to our state’s greenhouse gas emissions, goods-movement activities are currently responsible for 42% of Southern California’s NOx emissions. By 2045, 26 million passenger vehicles on the road need to be electric (3/4 of all cars). Some 900,000 medium-duty vehicles (2/3rds) and 170,000 heavy-duty vehicles (1/3rd) need to be electric. Low-carbon fuels play a significant role for heavy-duty vehicles and remove more than half of the carbon emissions in this segment
SCE’s eMobility® has been created to remove barriers to electrification. This department inside its Customer Programs is devoted to electrifying vehicles (EV) and buildings by addressing
- Availability: Install infrastructure necessary to fuel EVs
- Affordability: Lower costs of acquiring electric vehicles
- Awareness: Increase customer understanding of EV benefits
- Accessibility: Ensure programs enable equity
Launched in 2019, their Charge Ready Transport program (CRT) provides infrastructure for fleet electrification. The program has a $356.4M budget that covers costs of all infrastructure needed for charging stations. Charging station rebates are available for transit/school buses and for eligible participants installing charging equipment at sites located in disadvantaged communities.
CRT helps fleet customers by reducing the costs of fixed infrastructure, charging equipment, and charging. SCE is currently working with 112 sites that can potentially support over 3,100 medium & heavy weight electric vehicles. Due to the availability of vehicles, many sites are still early in the process, but early-engagements have increased in the last year. Their distribution will be representative of currently available vehicles and the industries where the economics are already penciling out such as school districts (26%), commercial (24%), warehouse/distribution centers (22%), and transit agencies (15%).
Their Transportation Electrification Advisory Service (TEAS) is a four year $4.8M program that has been created to assist customers through the process with enhanced education, tools, and support as they electrify operations. TEAS will help customers understand their electrify-ability and where utility and/or public assistance is available. Examples include:
- EV Readiness Studies-Provide qualified customers with a high-level study of their proposed electrification project.
- Webinars/Workshops-Offer free, quarterly webinars and workshops on various TE topics.
- Grant Assistance-Assist qualified, small to mid-sized fleet commercial customers located in disadvantaged communities apply for grants that fund the acquisition of electric vehicles.
- Events- Offer in-person events to give customers an opportunity to test new technology.
SCE has proposed two new initiatives to help electrify commercial vehicles in part by filing its Low Carbon Fuel Standard Implementation Plan with the CPUC on June 15th, proposing a rebate for drayage trucks and zero-emissions truck, bus, and infrastructure finance programas for small and medium businesses. Decisions on these programs are expected mid to late 2022.
While SCE has its own forecasts for EV adoption, understanding real adoption plans from customers is needed to ensure the grid delivers on time. Current planning processes present challenges to meet increasing TE demands, esp. MD/HD. SCE is required to use the California Energy Commissions Integrated Energy Policy Report (IEPR) mid scenario for planning, which is significantly lower than SCE’s load growth projections. Additionally, the scenario does not align with CARB’s policy framework for emission reductions. SCE must know what the load will be to plan for timely distribution upgrades and know where the load will be needed. The goal of these efforts is to develop maps of SCE circuits that will be impacted over time by EV adoptions and electrification load growth. SCE has advocated to CEC on the limitations of the current IEPR planning process and recommends adding planning scenarios for additional consideration. SCE’s planning is only as good as the information they can access.
System reliability is linked to the structure of the grid. The electric system is an interconnected network for supplying and delivering electricity from energy resources to consumers. The future grid is becoming more complex with challenges like the impact of climate change, renewables integration, and smart end-use appliances that are changing the way they plan and operate the system. Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) modernize planning. Instead of power flowing in one direction, DERs enable networks of generation and load sources to communicate and work together, which can lead to increased regional resiliency. SCE is reimagining its grid based on what is now possible. Technology layers are bundled together to develop specific solutions across the grid. Foundational information technology and operational technology grid components include data & analytical systems, grid control systems, cybersecurity, communications networks along with sensor and edge computing. Physical grid layers will be the existing grid, new assets, next-gen devices and DER’s.
A Q & A period followed.
Meeting adjourned at 8:35 a.m.