MINUTES
REGULAR MEETING of the Energy Planning & Resources Committee of the Clean Power Alliance of Southern California
Wednesday, October 26, 2022, 12:15 p.m.
Pursuant to the Proclamation of the State of Emergency by Governor Newsom on March 4, 2020, AB 361, and enacting Resolutions, and as a response to mitigating the spread of COVID19, the Energy Planning & Resources Committee conducted this meeting remotely.
Meeting videos are available on CPA’s YouTube Channel.
www.youtube.com@CPApublicmeetings
CALL TO ORDER & ROLL CALL
Chair Parkhurst called the meeting to order at 12:15 p.m. and, Gabriela Monzon, Board Clerk, conducted roll call.
ROLL CALL
Alhambra Jeffrey Maloney Committee Member Remote
Carson Reata Kulcsar Committee Member Remote
Culver City Daniel Lee Committee Member Absent
Oxnard Kathleen Mallory Committee Member Remote
Sierra Madre Robert Parkhurst Chair Remote
South Pasadena Diana Mahmud Committee Member Remote
Thousand Oaks Helen Cox Committee Member Absent
All votes are unanimous, unless otherwise stated.
GENERAL PUBLIC COMMENT
There was no public comment.
CONSENT AGENDA
1. Approve Minutes from September 28, 2022, Energy Committee Meeting
2. Receive and File September 2022 Risk Management Team Report Motion: Committee Member Mahmud, South Pasadena
Second: Committee Member Maloney, Alhambra
Vote: The consent agenda was approved by a roll call vote.
REGULAR AGENDA
3. Approve the 2022 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) for Submission to the California Public Utilities Commission
Natasha Keefer, Vice President, Power Supply, provided a presentation on the 2022 IRP filing to be submitted to the California Public Utilities Commission Clean Power Alliance Energy Planning & Resources Committee Page 2 of 3 October 26, 2022
(CPUC). The Board previously delegated IRP approval authority to the Energy Committee and CPA will only submit one Preferred IRP Narrative document, which is consistent with the specific format and guidelines of the CPUC. Ms. Keefer reviewed the background of regulatory risk, noting that the CPUC Energy Division staff released a paper on options for the design of a mid-to-long-term procurement program; the paper proposed that LSE IRP filings could be binding procurement mandates, starting with the 2022 IRP. CPA will file comments opposing this proposal, which are due December 12. To mitigate that risk, CPA has adjusted its proposed portfolio to reflect only new procurement with a high level of certainty.
In response to questions, Ms. Keefer clarified that the resource commitments have two binding timelines ending in 2030 and another with a five-year outlook.
Regarding the proposed comments to be submitted to the CPUC, staff explained that CPA’s comments will illustrate that the procurement order should be based on the total system need and is completely unrelated to what is included in the IRP; ambitious targets for new procurement and decarbonization should not put CPA at a greater risk of regulatory penalty. Chair Parkhurst agreed, opining that this procurement orders based on system need would allow the IRP to be more ambitious and aggressive.
Ms. Keefer provided a summary of the final proposed IRP portfolio and reviewed submission case results of CPA total buildout by technology and reviewed the proposed new incremental resources. Responding to Committee Member Mahmud’s questions about resources and lithium-ion battery technology, Ms.
Keefer indicated that the resources coming online in 2026 are the long duration storage and incremental geothermal megawatts, whereas the contracts for 2023- 2025 are for existing resources. Regarding lithium-ion battery technology, from an operating perspective there is not much distinction between the 8-hour and two 4- hour duration batteries; CPA’s resource cost assumptions do not reflect a decrease in the cost of non-lithium-ion storage technologies. Responding to Chair Parkhurst’s question about costs for long-duration batteries, Ms. Keefer noted that the resource cost assumptions used for long duration storage were increased on a cost trajectory from the CPUC baseline.
Ms. Keefer noted how the CPA portfolio compares with the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions targets; the proposed submission case was designed to just exceed the 25 MMT 2030 and 2035 GHG benchmark. Ms. Keefer reviewed CPA’s portfolio percentage of renewable energy and reliability need per year; and outlined the procurement cost estimates per year. Responding to Chair Parkhurst’s question about current targets, Ms. Keefer indicated that the interim targets are set by the Renewable Portfolio Standard’s (RPS) compliance period; this year the target is 41% and by 2030 it rises to 60%, and CPA will be at 77% by 2023. In response to Committee Member Mahmud’s questions, Ms. Keefer noted that CPA’s load is not expected to increase significantly over time, as the annual increase is less than 1% a year and CPA is not assuming additional expansion in this IRP; if CPA were to expand, the assumption is that resource purchases would be relatively proportionate to what is shown in the procurement cost graph. Resource Adequacy (RA) product is purchased in monthly increments and is synonymous with the capacity market; capacity market costs are based on short term RA purchases and procurement is done on a month-to-month basis to account for RA requirements.
There is an optimization to account for the price difference in building storage batteries versus procuring existing resources, and staff is working to ensure that the new batteries shown in the IRP are achievable. Committee Member Mahmud recommended a change on the description of the ‘new resource addition cost’ category to identify it as Midterm Reliability (MTR) resource addition costs.
Clean Power Alliance Energy Planning & Resources Committee Page 3 of 3 October 26, 2022
Responding to Chair Parkhurst’s questions, Ms. Keefer indicated that CPA enters into long term contracts that have RA value, such as solar and storage resources, and short-term contracts to fill current RA needs. CPA has contracts to buy RA for various time increments, from one month up to 20 years. Committee Member Mahmud asked about CPUC feedback on prior submitted IRPs, and Ms. Keefer indicated that in 2018, the CPUC determined that the aggregation of the LSEs IRPs was not meeting environmental targets and was not reliable, and the CPUC chose their preferred system plan; in 2020, the CPUC added the MTR procurement. Committee Member Mahmud asked for minor edits to the Executive Summary (page 4) of the IRP Narrative: (1) Add reference to technological developments and grid expansion under “Other Market or Regulatory Consideration” to reflect potential changes to procurement; (2) add reference to “technological developments and grid expansion” after the phrase “changing market conditions”; (3) strike the words “in conjunction with” and replace with “input from”.
Motion: Committee Member Mahmud, South Pasadena
Second: Committee Member Mallory, Oxnard
Vote: Item 3 was approved by a roll call vote with the edits to the executive summary of the IRP Narrative.
4. 2022 Power Share Request for Offers
John McNamara, Director, Structured Contracts, provided a presentation on the 2022 Power Share Request for Offers (RFO). Mr. McNamara reviewed the background of the CPUC approved Power Share program and its two distinct programs, Disadvantaged Community Green Tariff (DAC-GT) and Community Solar Green Tariff (CS-GT); CPA has reached full enrollment in its DAC-GT program. Mr. McNamara provided an overview of the 2021 Power Share RFO seven shortlisted projects, which are all expected to achieve commercial operation by the end of 2023. CPA has made process towards filling its program capacity; CPA’s remaining allocation are 27% and 80% for the DAC-GT and CS-GT programs respectively. Lastly, Mr. McNamara reviewed outreach and specified various project eligibility changes for the 2022 RFO.
Committee Member Mahmud inquired whether staff suggests that CPA members consider using city property to sponsor Disadvantaged Communities’ (DAC) projects. Alex Ricklefs, Program Manager, Community Solar, indicated that staff are having conversations with member agencies to educate them about how to be community sponsors and receive a portion of the project energy output and how to have approved community solar sites. In response to Committee Member questions, staff indicated that project sites can be located in Southern California Edison’s (SCE’s) territory; customers have to be located within five miles of the project for the community solar program. Additionally, the preference for project sites within CPA’s service territory remains.
COMMITTEE MEMBER COMMENTS
Committee Member Mahmud congratulated the Energy Committee on the accomplished work. Chair Parkhurst encouraged Committee Members to reach out to other CPA Board Members to join.
ADJOURN
Chair Parkhurst adjourned the meeting at 1:35 p.m.