After the Glendale City Council passed a city-wide goal of achieving 10% adoption of customer solar and storage technologies by 2027 and additional 100 MW peak dispatchable and peak load-reducing capacity, Glendale Water and Power (GWP), the municipal utility, enlisted E3 to help it devise a strategy to reach that goal equitably and cost-effectively. E3 employed the IDSM tool to assess the predicted adoption of distributed solar and storage according to several different scenarios with varying utility incentives and rate designs. The scenarios were evaluated not only on whether they reached the 10% target but also on their ability to attribute the benefits of DERs equitably among more than a dozen different customer segments. System-wide impacts on emissions, ratepayer impacts, and utility avoided costs were calculated with the outputs of the IDSM tool.

The balance between affordability and adoption impact is a careful consideration when selecting program portfolios to ensure equitable growth. IDSM modeling results enable the E3 team to reveal the feasibility of achieving the 10% adoption target through a strategic combination of robust community outreach, utility incentives, and a rate design that encourages adoption while also mitigating ratepayer impacts.

E3 led a team completing an inclusive, year-long study to identify the policies and programs needed to achieve the New York City’s decarbonization goals. E3’s analysis involved both examining policies and programs to meet the city’s long-term goals as well as providing specific recommendations for actions to be taken during the current administration. The study included eight research branches focused on the performance and cost of heat pumps in new buildings; the affordability of electrification retrofits in rent-regulated housing; the opportunities for electric school bus managed charging and vehicle-to-grid; the potential for in-city wind energy; a screening of public lands for new clean energy development; an assessment of the electric grid readiness for increasing heat pump and EV charging loads; and an evaluation of how bulk energy storage could reduce reliance on in-city fossil generation. Based on E3’s study, New York City published PowerUp NYC, the city’s first Long-Term Energy Plan, which includes 29 clean energy initiatives focused on the city’s energy grid, its buildings, and its transportation sector. Many aspects of the PowerUp NYC, from research topic selection to recommendations, were developed in collaboration with the public, and with the public’s interest at the forefront of the decision-making process. The recommendations of the LTEP are aligned with long-term energy and equity policy mandates from both the city and state and revolve around the needs of NYC residents.

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E3 supported the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) on four transportation electrification filings. First, E3 and its subcontractors Anser Advisory and Black & Veatch designed a program for HECO to build the make-ready infrastructure for electric buses to support electrification of transportation for transit, tourism, and other bus operators. Second, E3 designed two new electric vehicle charging rates, EV-J and EV-P, for commercial electric vehicle charging sites. E3 developed a rate design calculator and performed cost-benefit assessments to evaluate different rate designs and propose final rates that will support low-cost public EV charging in Hawaii. Third, E3 and its subcontractor Anser Advisory supported HECO in developing its Charge Ready Hawaii pilot program to deploy make-ready charging infrastructure for commercial and multi-unit dwelling locations. Finally, E3 and its subcontractors Anser Advisory and Atlas Public Policy supported HECO in developing a proposal to expand its public DC fast charging (DCFC) infrastructure pilot to build out 150 DCFC ports and 150 dual-port Level 2 charging stations across its service territory. These programs – three of which have been approved by the Hawaii Public Utilities Commission with the fourth project (DCFC program expansion) under review in 2022 – build on HECO’s Electrification of Transportation Roadmap and allow for HECO to support its customers in electrifying their vehicles and fleets.

E3 supports the California Energy Commission (CEC) in implementing the state building energy code by maintaining the economic framework for energy standard requirements and allowed trade-offs for new construction. We have worked with the CEC and its stakeholders since 1999 to continually refine a time-dependent valuation (TDV) methodology, and we are now under contract to support the 2025 Title 24 Update. The TDV methodology uses a 30-year forecast of the social cost of energy that varies hourly and by location to account for shifts in system peaks over time, and regional variations in climate and grid utilization. . E3’s initial study investigated a shift to a value-based standard that accounts for the time and geographic differences in energy costs seen in California energy prices, natural gas and propane markets, as well as in the costs of electric utility distribution and transmission systems. TDV was initially adopted in 2005, and E3 supported the updates in 2008, 2013, 2016, 2019, and 2022.

Publications

• Time Dependent Valuation of Energy for Developing Building Efficiency Standards