“We can solve this climate crisis if we focus on the big, bold steps necessary to cut pollution. California now has a groundbreaking, world-leading plan to achieve 100 percent zero-emission vehicle sales by 2035.”
Energy Transition
“For California to meet its carbon neutrality goals for 2045, 75% of light-duty vehicles will need to be electrified, along with 67% of medium-duty and 40% of heavy-duty vehicles. Combined with the electrification of other parts of the economy, the load on the grid will increase by about 60%.”
Source: Steven Powell, president and CEO of Southern California Edison
The clean power and clean transportation revolution would make a big difference to pollution-burdened communities
- LA’s air is poor. It is in EPA “nonattainment” status for criteria pollutants.
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- Transportation is the largest source of air pollution and CO2 emissions (37%), with industry (20%) and electricity generation (16%) also being significant emitters.
- Residents of disadvantaged communities near LA’s freeways, harbors, and railroads will be healthier with new transmission bringing more clean power into LA.
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CAISO, the power grid planning authority, has thought about how to transmit a large amount of new renewable energy resources to the load centers in California’s cities. New transmission projects, including projects like the submarine circuits that TRED is developing, are needed.
There is no time to waste in preparing the grid for the future. CAISO’s study of grid capacity shows that margins are slim. The grid’s ability to bring energy into western LA, shown by the red line in the graph, is not enough to serve western LA load. And CAISO’s projections for 2032 show that available local resources are only 57 MW above the minimum needed to maintain reliability. Load and capacity needs will continue growing so it is important to begin long-lead-time transmission projects now to have projects in-service when needed to keep the grid reliable.
Source: CAISO 2022-23 TPP Report, Appendix J at 111-112
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New transmission projects are notoriously difficult to build. These linear projects can impact many landowners and take a long time to permit. A review of other California projects done by the Clean Air Task Force shows that they almost always take significantly longer than the initial projections.
The Los Angeles and San Diego areas in southern California have experienced consistently high prices for at least the past five years. Transmission to access low-cost generation (either locally or in neighboring regions) would alleviate high costs to consumers.
Source: DOE, National Transmission Needs Study (Feb. 2023) at vi.