SMUD Plans to Beat State Net Zero Carbon Goal by 15 Years

California has mandated its state power providers reach 60% renewables by 2030, but the Sacramento Municipal Utility District plans to supply 100% clean energy by the start of the next decade. That puts it ahead of virtually all other utilities, according to SMUD’s March 2021 Zero Carbon report .

Its plan for net zero power supply emissions by 2030 entails expanding its 6 MW of battery energy storage to as much as 1,100 MW, its 500 MW of solar to up to 1,500 MW, its 230 MW of wind to as much as 500 MW, and its 52 MW of geothermal up to 220 MW. That is according to SMUD Manager of Distributed Energy Strategy Obadiah Bartholomy.

It is a lot of new renewables but SMUD is “fully committed to meeting these challenges, and I am optimistic,” Bartholomy told Current during a recent phone interview. But it will not be easy. “There will be a massive amount of change over the next 10 years in infrastructure, investment, power supply, expectations of customers and scaling of [distributed energy resources]. We need to identify all of the challenges, understand them, and work through them.”

California plans to go from 2019’s approximately 22 GW of mandate-eligible renewables to roughly 48 GW in 2030 and keep building at that same pace to reach net zero emissions by 2045, according to the California Energy Commission March report on SB 100 . That will require tripling its biggest annual installation of wind and solar and adding eight times as much storage every year, the CEC said.

Three focuses

There are likely to be three key areas of operational issues to be addressed to get to SMUD’s 2030 goals. “First, the climate is changing, and we are encountering conditions that are outside of our historic planning criteria and could have impacts beyond the reliability standards we built our systems to meet if the change continues to accelerate,” Bartholomy said.

Climate change-driven factors like the diminished hydropower supply and wildfires threats to transmission systems make SMUD and California more vulnerable and are changing planning. California’s planning reserve margin increase from 15% to 17.5% “may seem modest, but it has billion-dollar implications,” he noted

Second, as penetrations of variable wind and solar grow, “low solar and wind conditions, and what their extremes might be could create operational events we are not expecting,” Bartholomy said. Improved forecasting data on system, weather, and transmission availability will be needed to allow power plant maintenance scheduling and retirement planning without impeding reliability.

Third, utilities will be asking customers to engage in a variety of utility or third-party <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.energy.ca.gov_programs-2Dand-2Dtopics_programs_electric-2Dprogram-2Dinvestment-2Dcharge-2Depic-2Dprogram_distributed-2Denergy&d=DwMFaQ&c=Ko5vnWWlemq1VcwTIpbf0g&r=-U3V6ENn9KulFQnkyc4elIXo-lCAbfYIVM8ZtGu7NU0&m=c9ixnj4WG_fSGLRd0ql9shV636T2weQu-jAoRE76lT4&s=xUc4Uvb3a7Z-FKG-fPEUcPGUr3oQfhQkFXTC-V0sq7M&e=" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">distributed energy resource programs to provide grid services and that will add new complexity to operations.

The key to managing that process is collaborating and coordinating with DER providers to integrate them better into the energy system, Bartholomy said. System operators need to develop confidence that DER aggregations can provide the reliability and flexibility needed to displace central fossil fueled power plants by delivering a variety of grid services for the utility.

Game changers

Building and transportation electrification comes with even greater challenges as SMUD joins the state in moving toward net zero emissions by 2045.

Moving buildings and consumer appliances from natural gas to electricity will impose new electrical constraints and require contractors to be “willing to engage and problem solve,” Bartholomy said. That is because it involves aspects of consumer experience, like hot water and space heating, that have not been impacted by electricity in the past.

The contractor needs to see the change and associated learning curve as worthwhile and then convince consumers to make the change. “That may be harder to address than power system supply questions, though some contractors are beginning to see the opportunity,” he added.

There will also be costs. SMUD intends to keep <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.utilitydive.com_news_californias-2Ddilemma-2Dhow-2Dto-2Dcontrol-2Dskyrocketing-2Delectric-2Drates-2Dwhile-2Dbuil_597767_&d=DwMFaQ&c=Ko5vnWWlemq1VcwTIpbf0g&r=-U3V6ENn9KulFQnkyc4elIXo-lCAbfYIVM8ZtGu7NU0&m=c9ixnj4WG_fSGLRd0ql9shV636T2weQu-jAoRE76lT4&s=qweUZKmgFYG3xsh8q-Kq2yBjG0s6azyzTrxqvP6GnZg&e=" target="_blank">rates even with inflation. That will take between $50 million/year and $150 million/year in “operational savings” and “partnerships and grants,” according to the muni’s March report.

Because the costs of solar and wind continue to fall, there are cost savings opportunities on the supply side, Bartholomy said.

Another factor that will help is that SMUD rates allow customers to save several hundred dollars a year by switching to electric appliances and more by switching to electric vehicles, he said.

The biggest game changer may be integrating electric transportation and power system operations. The mobile storage from batteries in single owner EVs, fleet EVs, and transportation network company EVs will add a lot of potential spare capacity, which is a huge opportunity for system optimization.

This means a huge change in electrical infrastructure planning and a different relationship between utilities, customers, and automakers. But it also “adds uncertainty to forecasting of when and where load will be, and for pricing structures and grid planning, if the utility wants to leverage that new capacity to displace other grid infrastructure,” Bartholomy said.

The associated reliability challenges for SMUD are worth it. Figuring out how to make it available with the certainty grid planners need will be difficult, but it may represent a massive amount of potential capacity to meet demand peaks,” according to Bartholomy.

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SMUD Plans to Beat State Net Zero Carbon Goal by 15 Years

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