LADWP, SMUD, and Other Municipal Utilities

CEERT continues our long-time work with municipal, publicly owned utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), and Riverside Utilities to reduce their dependence on fossil-fueled power and increase reliance on clean energy resources.

Recent Developments:

V. John White has continued serving on the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s Advisory Committee for its Strategic Long Term Resource Plan and its implementation of the overall LA 100% clean energy plan, and he has also been part of the Equity Advisory Committee. Among the issues still outstanding are the extent to which hydrogen combustion will be used to replace in-Basin gas plants, the need and opportunities for new expanded transmission, and the need to emphasize equitable green mobility in developing electric transportation.

V. John White and Maia Leroy participated in a briefing by Sacramento Municipal Utility District General Manager Paul Lau and SMUD Board Member Heidi Sanborn about a prospective carbon capture and sequestration demonstration project that Calpine has proposed. The project would be developed on the site of the existing Sutter Gas Plant near Yuba City, and SMUD would be the off-taker for the zero-carbon electricity produced by the project, which would be federally funded. CEERT discussed potential environmental and community impacts, financial risks, and the danger that the plant would be seen as an alternative to direct GHG reductions and expansion of clean energy and storage.

V. John White was invited by community activist Malissa Hathaway McKeith to meet with the General Manager of Riverside Utilities to advise them on a proposed $9 million study by NREL and affiliated companies, and on helping them develop a Riverside Utilities 100% clean energy plan based on our experience with similar plans at LADWP and SMUD. We discussed the potential scope of work, and the possibility of collaborating with UC Riverside’s Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT) in putting together a team to carry out a less expensive, more locally focused study.