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City Council
Staff Report
From: City Manager
Report Type: CONSENT CALENDAR
Lead Department: Utilities
Meeting Date: April 15, 2024
Staff Report: 2401-2496
TITLE
Approve the Reliability and Resiliency Strategic Plan as Recommended by the Utilities Advisory Commission; CEQA Status: exempt, not a project
RECOMMENDATION
The Utilities Advisory Commission (UAC) and staff recommend the City Council approve the Reliability and Resiliency Strategic Plan for the City’s electric utility.
CEQA Status: Strategies 1.1 – 1.3, Grid Modernization Project: Exempt under CEQA Guidelines Sections 15302, 15303 and 15183; Strategy 1.4, Potential 2 nd Transmission Line: Not a Project; Strategy 1.5, Foothills Undergrounding: Exempt under CEQA Guidelines Sections 15302; Strategies 2-6: Not a Project.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Reliability and Resiliency Strategic Plan (RRSP) is a work item in the 2023-2025 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan (S/CAP) Work Plan. The RRSP is intended to address the need for a reliable, well maintained electric system with enhanced reliability to support an electrified community and a desire among some residential community members for ways to maintain some level of electric supply during outages, particularly with an electrified home. At its December 6, 2023 meeting, the UAC discussed the proposed RRSP. The UAC recommended the City Council approve the RRSP with the inclusion of their input. Staff has incorporated the UAC input into the proposed RRSP (Attachment A). 1 Council held a study session 2 to review the draft RRSP on February 12, 2024. Staff has included some changes to the RRSP in redline to address Council comments at that meeting, specifically 1) adding an action to Strategy 1 to develop goals for 1 The UAC edits are not shown in redline in Attachment A of this report but are included. You can see a summary of the UAC edits in Staff Report 2311-2211 for the February 12, 2024 City Council meeting (Item 1) (https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=13351) and the UAC edits are shown in redline in Attachment A of that report.
2Study Session
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reliability metrics and 2) noting microgrids more prominently in Strategy 5, Action 4. The City Council Ad Hoc Climate Protection Committee also held a public meeting of the Committee’s Working Group on March 26 to review the RRSP. Staff and the UAC recommend Council approve the RRSP with the redlined changes.
BACKGROUND
More background on the RRSP is provided in the December 6, 2023 UAC staff report.3 UAC feedback4 can be found in the meeting minutes and is summarized below.
ANALYSIS
The RRSP is intended to address questions the community has had about the electric system’s:
•Reliability: how frequently the system experiences outages, •Modernization: how the system will be upgraded to integrate and effectively utilize new and existing flexible technologies like solar with batteries or vehicle to grid technology, •Capacity: the capacity of the system to handle electrification, and •Resiliency: the system’s ability to minimize the impacts of a major event, recover quickly, and the utility’s role in helping individual customers maintain service during outages.
It includes six strategies, as follows:
•Strategy 1: Replace and modernize electric distribution infrastructure, which includes:
othe grid modernization project, actions 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 othe second transmission line project, action 1.4
othe Foothills undergrounding project, action 1.5
•Strategy 2: Implement operational practices to improve reliability and manage outages effectively
•Strategy 3: Integrate and ease adoption of flexible and efficient technologies and strategies
•Strategy 4: Evaluate the benefits of flexible and resiliency technologies and efficient electrification strategies to the utility and community •Strategy 5: Evaluate the resource needs to promote the adoption of various flexible demand reduction and resiliency solutions and efficient electrification strategies. •Strategy 6: Implement any utility-driven programs identified in Strategy 5 that are chosen by the City Council
3 UAC Staff Report https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/3/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas- minutes/utilitiesadvisory-commission/archived-agenda-and-minutes/agendas-and-minutes-2023/12-dec-2023/12- 06-2023-packetv2.pdf#page=129
4 UAC Feedback https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/files/assets/public/v/1/agendas-minutes-reports/agendas- minutes/utilities-advisory-commission/archived-agenda-and-minutes/agendas-and-minutes-2023/12-dec- 2023/12-06-2023-approved-uac-minutes.pdf
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More detail on these strategies and how they address reliability, modernization, capacity, and the resiliency of the electric system can be found in the attached Progress Update (Attachment B) and the Discussion section of Staff Report 2311-2211 for the February 12, 2024 City council meeting.5
Attachment B includes a status update (with costs) on the various RRSP strategies and actions.
COMMISSION RECOMMENDATION
In general, the UAC felt the RRSP was aligned with Council policy direction and feedback from the UAC in earlier meetings. Some minor changes were requested to the document by UAC Commissioners at the December 6, 2023 UAC meeting and were incorporated into the proposed RRSP by staff. More detail on these changes can be found in the Commission Recommendation section of Staff Report 2311-2211 for the February 12, 2024 City Council meeting. 6 The UAC unanimously (7-0) approved staff’s recommendation to recommend to the City Council the adoption of the RRSP, with modifications discussed by the Commission.
FISCAL/RESOURCE IMPACT
The staffing and consulting resources needed to implement Strategies 1 through 5 are already in place or will be requested through the annual budget process. Additional resources would likely be needed to implement Strategy 6 depending which customer resiliency programs Council chooses to approve. More detail on the resource needs for various aspects of the plan are outlined in the Fiscal Impact section of Staff Report 2311-2211 for the February 12, 2024 City Council meeting.6
STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT
Staff has reviewed the proposed RRSP with the UAC, the Council Ad Hoc Climate Protection Committee, that Committee’s Working Group (in a public meeting), and the Council. The RRSP is also the product of a variety of public engagement efforts spanning several years prior to development of the RRSP, as outlined in the Stakeholder Engagement section of Staff Report 2311-2211 for the February 12, 2024 City Council meeting.6
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
The grid modernization project (described in Strategies 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 in Attachment A) will replace aging infrastructure and install modern network infrastructure to meet future needs related to home electrification. This project does not expand the existing footprint of the City’s network; there is sufficient capacity on the existing sub-transmission lines, substations, and 5Staff Report 2311-2211
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6February 12, 2024 City Council Meeting
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primary feeders to serve the energy load that is being added to the system. Changes to the equipment on the network will include replacement and installation of pad-mounted transformers and new protective devices to improve reliability, and system controls to allow for the import and export of energy from homes on the network. This project is categorically exempt from California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review under CEQA Guidelines section 15303 (construction and location of limited numbers of new, small facilities or structures; installation of small new equipment and facilities in small structures) and section 15302 (replacement or reconstruction of existing structures and facilities). In addition, Council’s approval of the grid modernization project does not require additional environmental review under CEQA Guidelines section 15183, because the grid modernization project, an element of the Council-approved S/CAP, is consistent with the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) Addendum to the City of Palo Alto Comprehensive Plan Final Environmental Impact Report Council approved on June 5, 2023.7 The potential second transmission line (described in Strategy 1.4 in Attachment B) is distinct and independent from the grid modernization project; CEQA analysis for this project will be conducted separately once sufficient details are present to analyze.
The Foothills undergrounding project (described in Strategy 1.5 in Attachment B) is distinct and independent from the grid modernization project and categorically exempt under CEQA Guidelines 15302 (replacement or reconstruction of existing structures and facilities/conversion of overhead electric utility distribution system facilities to underground).
Strategies 2 through 5 are not projects under CEQA because the operational activities, software upgrades and program evaluations in Strategies 2 through 5 are administrative governmental activities which will not result in any environmental impacts. Individual programs and installations chosen by the community after the completion of Strategies 2 through 6 will undergo CEQA evaluation before implementation, as needed.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment A: Proposed Reliability and Resiliency Strategic Plan Attachment B: March 2024 Status Update on RRSP Strategies and Actions AUTHOR/TITLE:
Dean Batchelor, Director of Utilities
Staff: Jonathan Abendschein, Assistant Director of Utilities/Resource Management
7Environmental Impact Report https://cityofpaloalto.primegov.com/Portal/Meeting?meetingTemplateId=12530