Regular Meeting of the Board of Directors of the
Peninsula Clean Energy Authority (PCEA)
Minutes
Thursday, September 28, 2023
6:30 p.m.
Zoom Video Conference and Teleconference
CALL TO ORDER
Meeting was called to order at 6:34 p.m. in virtual teleconference, in the Peninsula Clean Energy Authority lobby, in the Los Banos City Hall conference room A.
ROLL CALL
Participating:
Dave Pine, San Mateo County
Coleen Mackin, Brisbane
Donna Colson, Burlingame, Vice Chair
Ken Gonzalez, Colma
Carlos Romero, East Palo Alto
Sam Hindi, Foster City
Harvey Rarback, Half Moon Bay
Leslie Ragsdale, Hillsborough
Paul Llanez Faria, Los Banos
Betsy Nash, Menlo Park
Anders Fung, Millbrae (arrived 6:44 p.m.)
Tygarjas Bigstyck, Pacifica
Jeff Aalfs, Portola Valley
Elmer Martinez Saballos, Redwood City
Marty Medina, San Bruno
John Dugan, San Carlos
Amourence Lee, San Mateo
Jennifer Wall, Woodside
Absent:
Ray Mueller, San Mateo County
Rick DeGolia, Atherton, Chair
Julia Mates, Belmont
Roderick Daus-Magbual, Daly City
James Coleman, South San Francisco
A quorum was established.
PUBLIC COMMENT
None
ACTION TO SET THE AGENDA AND APPROVE REMAINING CONSENT AGENDA ITEMS MOTION: Director Medina moved, seconded by Director Romero to set the Agenda, and approve Agenda Item Number 1.
1. Approval of Peninsula Clean Energy’s 2022 Power Source Disclosure Annual Reports and Power Content Label
MOTION PASSED: 17-0 (Absent: San Mateo County, Atherton, Belmont, Daly City, Millbrae, South San Francisco)
JURISDICTION BOARD MEMBER YES NO ABSTAIN ABSENT
San Mateo County Director Pine X
San Mateo County Director Mueller X
Atherton Director DeGolia X
Belmont Director Mates X
Brisbane Director Mackin X
Burlingame Director Colson X
Colma Director Gonzalez X
Daly City Director Daus-Magbual X
East Palo Alto Director Romero X
Foster City Director Hindi X
Half Moon Bay Director Rarback X
Hillsborough Director Ragsdale X
Los Banos Director Llanez X
Menlo Park Director Nash X
Millbrae Director Fung X
Pacifica Director Bigstyck X
Portola Valley Director Taylor X
Redwood City Director Martinez Saballos X
San Bruno Director Medina X
San Carlos Director Venkatesh X
San Mateo Director Loraine X
South San Francisco Director Coleman X
Woodside Director Wall X
Total 17 6
REGULAR AGENDA
2. Chair Report
Vice Chair Colson reported that she is standing in for Chair DeGolia and thanked the Surplus Funds Committee and Staff for their diligence.
3. CEO Report
Shawn Marshall, Chief Executive Officer, gave a presentation including a status update on the two Surplus Funds Committee meetings, a recap on the 2023 Summer Intern program, a recap of the 2023 Staff Retreat, a recap of the 2023 CalCCA Board Retreat, and acknowledged their organizational development team of Blake, Justin, Brianna, Gwen, and Nelly for putting together a great retreat.
Director Hindi asked if Peninsula Clean Energy interns were compensated. Shawn explained that undergrads received $25 per hour for 10 weeks, and graduates received $35 per hour for different scopes of work.
Vice Chair Colson noted that the Peninsula Clean Energy Board has a few upcoming field trips in the works for next year: Merced/Los Banos; Sonoma Clean Power; and CAISO.
Shawn added that the Clean Air Coalition is hosting events to commemorate Clean Air Day which coincides with the completion of the Mission Blue Center Gov PV project in Brisbane, and that a ribbon-cutting event will be held and a press conference to celebrate the new project.
4. Community Advisory Committee Report
Cheryl Schaff, Community Advisory Committee (CAC) Chair, provided a report recapping the September 14, 2023 CAC meeting, citing member comments which were read into the record.
Director Rarback shared that the electrification workshop at the Senior Center in Half Moon Bay was very successful and well-attended.
5. Approval of $524,500 Contract Extension with CLEAResult to Provide Technical Assistance Services in the EV Ready Program
Phillip Kobernick, Senior Transportation Programs Manager, Electric Vehicles, gave a presentation, including the EV-Ready program, updates and metrics, and a contract extension for CLEAResult to provide technical assistance services in the EV Ready Program.
Director Mackin asked how the owners of the multi-unit buildings are finding out about the availability of the technical assistance. Phillip explained that there has been outreach from Peninsula Clean Energy and CLEAResult, and that demand has increased for housing with EV chargers. Director Mackin asked about the contract extension and whether there are adequate funds to address response. Phillip explained that the contract extension will help more than double the volume of incoming customers.
Director Taylor asked if there was any utilization statistics on the chargers and Phillip explained that they will since as a condition for funding, they will be providing data for EV charges and they are setting up backend systems, working with the EV charging companies themselves versus the customer to minimize the level of effort they would need to be involved in.
Director Taylor asked about goals for utilization. Phillip explained that for a lot of these sites, they are putting in much more charging than there is currently demand for, so they can do a “once and done” approach, knowing it will take several years for those chargers to be fully utilized. Last year, more than one-third of new vehicle purchases were electric, so he suspects they will be used soon.
Director Loraine asked for insight as to what was causing the cancellations with the CALeVIP program. Phillip explained they did a first come, first served, and it was immediately sold out when they did the first round. Many of those projects never materialized and seemed to be projects more aspirational than a reality. In their program, they follow-up with customers and they try to determine when projects possibly may be more of a sales pitch than a real project, so these are the reasons there are cancellations. Phillip explained the program also launched in December 2020 which was early in the pandemic and many were at work sites and public access sites, which were not used.
Director Loraine asked for clarification about the difference between a charging evaluation and offering technical assistance to customers. Phillip explained that a charging evaluation is the deliverable but they receive a lot more than just that. They are also getting a load study on their site, a virtual site walk, an array of different options that factor in what they ask for, and it is a more aspirational request for them to shoot for and consider that brings down project costs. He noted that the charging evaluation is the PDF which contains all the findings and includes one thing they can take and discuss to figure out what project they will move forward with.
Director Ragsdale asked if the individual person pays for the chargers, or she asked if the building itself pays for all those charging on them. Phillip explained that in every case that they have helped people install charging at their properties, property managers have opted for smart charging or smart outlets that have billing systems as a part of the charging system. Drivers would be paying a fee to use the system as set by the property to recoup costs.
Director Romero asked about the ration of Level 1 to Level 2 chargers. Phillip shared it was close to even, with slightly more to Level 2.
Director Romero asked if the charging evaluations help people understand the trade-offs with power management. Phillip said yes, as far as technical assistance, they do a lot of education with property owners to demonstrate how cost-effective strategies and low power strategies can scale up. Director Romero commented he is feeling much more comfortable with the charging evaluation pricing, given the product being delivered is understood through technical assistance.
Director Pine asked about the installation goal of 3,500 installations. Phillip explained that the momentum has really picked up with an upcoming project with 63 chargers in one site, with a goal of 200 chargers installed per month.
Vice Chair Colson asked if there were sites in Los Banos. Phillip explained there is 1 worksite in Los Banos and 1 worksite in place.
Vice Chair Colson asked about the comprehensive packaging of electrification rebates which is complicated and shared that she is trying to figure out how to accomplish an outreach of Burlingame’s program that the city can prototype so all other Directors can take it to their cities and figure out how to outreach to their cities. Phillip agreed to follow-up.
Director Fung asked for more detail as to the outreach efforts look like in Los Banos. Phillip explained that Los Banos outreach was focused with the assistance of previous Los Banos staff, with more face-to-face meetings expected with the hire of a new outreach associate. In San Mateo County, email campaigns were done, mailers were sent to around 950 properties with more outreach and marketing is planned in the next year.
Director Mackin added that cities may have outreach opportunities to commercial sites and this might be an easy way to identify potential sites.
Public Comments: None
MOTION: Director Bigstyck moved, seconded by Director Romero to Approve $524,500 Contract Extension with CLEAResult to Provide Technical Assistance Services in the EV Ready Program.
MOTION PASSED: 18-0 (Absent: San Mateo County, Atherton, Belmont, Daly City, South San Francisco)
JURISDICTION BOARD MEMBER YES NO ABSTAIN ABSENT
San Mateo County Director Pine X
San Mateo County Director Mueller X
Atherton Director DeGolia X
Belmont Director Mates X
Brisbane Director Mackin X
Burlingame Director Colson X
Colma Director Gonzalez X
Daly City Director Daus-Magbual X
East Palo Alto Director Romero X
Foster City Director Hindi X
Half Moon Bay Director Rarback X
Hillsborough Director Ragsdale X
Los Banos Director Llanez X
Menlo Park Director Nash X
Millbrae Director Fung X
Pacifica Director Bigstyck X
Portola Valley Director Taylor X
Redwood City Director Martinez Saballos X
San Bruno Director Medina X
San Carlos Director Venkatesh X
San Mateo Director Loraine X
South San Francisco Director Coleman X
Woodside Director Wall X
Total 18 5
6. Update on Peninsula Clean Energy’s Activities in the 2023-2024 Legislative Session (Discussion) Marc Hershman, Director of Government Affairs, introduced Mark Fenstermaker from Pacific Policy Group who gave a presentation with an update on the California State Legislature. He reviewed the many changes this year with a 25% turnover due to redistricting, return to in-person meetings, new rules for term length, volatile budget cycles and surpluses, proposals for climate proposals, energy, school, housing, and other bonds, needs to build new legislative relationships, a big push for initiatives, budget volatility, described AB 1373 (Garcia) provisions and SB 537 (Becker).
Director Fung asked about the opposition to SB 537. Mark explained that the opposition was concern over a fundamental erosion of the Brown Act.
Shawn Marshall, CEO, noted there were 200 bills for housing and many competing overlays and she appreciates the work of Staff and those testifying.
Shawn asked for clarification on the states involved in the regional grid. Mark explained that they are California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and New Mexico, and Nevada might be in it as well.
Director Taylor asked if there are restrictions on the power being generated. Mark explained that the initiative is to set up a non-profit independent body, and then it may be that they do not create a regional transmission operator, but it may be a new marketplace.
Public Comments: None
7. Board Members’ Reports
Vice Chair Colson shared that the San Mateo Daily Journal hosted a Senior Day at the Burlingame Senior Center as part of a series throughout the counter for senior outreach and suggested Peninsula Clean Energy purchase a table. Shawn said the marketing team could look into this.
ADJOURNMENT
Meeting was adjourned at 8:07 p.m.