IEEE Electrification - June 2019 - 62

VIEWPOINT

space and water heater becomes
cleaner over its lifespan.

Decarbonize the Grid
If the energy produced in California
by large-scale resources is 80% carbon-free and energy efficiency and
distributed solar are maximized,
GHG emissions will be reduced from
84 MMT/year to 28 MMT/year, or
31.1% of the 2030 GHG reduction goal
(Figure 1). Supplying 80% carbon-free
energy would require a state generation portfolio comprising nondispatchable resources, including
wind and solar, and dispatchable
resources, including hydroelectric
generators, as well as the addition of
up to 30 GW of renewable capacity.
SCE plans to integrate the resulting
high penetration of large-scale
renewable resources by diversifying
the anticipated renewables portfolio
in terms of resource availability and
location, increasing the capacity of
the transmission grid, and enhancing
the integration across the Western
Interconnection (one of the two
major ac power grids in the continental U.S. power transmission grid).
Under the clean power and electrification scenario, as many as
10 GW of energy storage from fixed
and transportable sources will be
required to help manage the volatility and uncertainty of nondispatchable resources, such as wind and
solar, by providing energy balancing

on hourly, daily, and seasonal bases.
The challenges faced by California
today, including the "duck curve,"
i.e., the difference between electricity demand and the amount of
available solar generation throughout the day, can be mitigated by
adding energy storage at scale and
enabling load shifting with electric
vehicles. SCE expects these challenges to be exacerbated by the
addition of more nondispatchable
renewables to the system; thus,
gas-fired generation and hybrid
systems, such as peaker plants that
combine battery energy storage
with gas turbines, may be needed
to preserve service reliability.
Decarbonizing California's grid
will also require modernizing the distribution system to integrate the distributed energy resources that SCE
expects its customers will continue
adopting, including rooftop and community solar, battery storage, and
electric vehicles. Grid modernization
using existing and emerging smart
grid technologies will allow these distributed energy resources to be better
integrated and optimized and so help
improve overall system reliability,
resilience, and safety.

Electrify Transportation
The electrification of 24% of lightduty vehicles, 15% of medium-duty
vehicles, and 6% of heavy-duty vehicles, with the power to supply those

cars and trucks coming from an
increasingly decarbonized grid, will
help reduce GHG emissions from 169
MMT/year to 111 MMT/year, or 32.2%
of the 2030 GHG reduction goal (Figure 1). SCE sees the need for at least
7 million cars and light trucks,
180,000 medium-duty trucks and
vans, and 22,000 heavy-duty trucks
and buses on California's roads by
2030 to achieve the state's aggressive
climate and air quality goals and
help phase out internal combustion
vehicles by 2050.
Supporting 7 million electric vehicles will require a huge build-out of
charging infrastructure, including
up to 700,000 public and workplace
charging stations. For this reason, the
ongoing charging-infrastructure pilots
run by California utilities, which
account for more than 19,000 charge
points today, will need to step up to
rapidly deploy more infrastructure
and chargers to meet the expected
proliferation of light-duty electric vehicles.
The electrification of mediumduty and heavy-duty trucks and
industrial vehicles and equipment,
including forklifts, transport refrigeration units, passenger buses, and
intermodal freight trucks, is underway. Accelerating this will require
developing the adequate charging
infrastructure and innovative collaborations, for instance, electrification of port operations and goods

Industrial
17.2%

Transportation
32.2%

Electric Power
31.1%

Residential
and
Commercial
6.7%

Cap and
Trade
6.7%

Agricultural
6.1%

Figure 1. GHG reductions across six sectors that are necessary to reach California's 2030 goals. (Source: Southern California Edison 2017a.)

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I E E E E l e c t r i f i cati o n M agaz ine / J UN E 2019
IEEE Electrification - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Electrification - June 2019
