California Energy Commission selects the Peninsula Advanced Energy Community for grant award

The Clean Coalition’s Peninsula Advanced Energy Community (PAEC) project, located in the southern portion of San Mateo County, California, was recently selected to receive a grant from the California Energy Commission (CEC). The grant will come from the CEC’s Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) program, which recently offered “The EPIC Challenge: Accelerating the Deployment of Advanced Energy Communities.”

The PAEC project, which is supported by Pacific Gas & Electric and numerous local governments, is an opportunity for the Clean Coalition to develop innovative and replicable approaches for accelerating the deployment of Advanced Energy Communities. The CEC defines an Advanced Energy Community as one that: minimizes the need for new energy infrastructure costs such as transmission and distribution upgrades; supports grid reliability and resiliency by incorporating technologies such as energy storage and microgrids; can be replicated and scaled-up to further drive down costs; and provides affordable access to renewable energy generation.

The PAEC project will include all of the above through abundant local solar electricity, zero net energy buildings, Solar Emergency Microgrids, and charging infrastructure to support the rapid growth in electric vehicles. It is anticipated based onthe equivalent of 25 MW of local solar photovoltaic,the project will save energy consumers over $25 million, generate over $100 million in regional economic output, create $35 million in local wages, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 800 million pounds over 20 years.

The PAEC region, which is experiencing enormous commercial and residential growth pressure, is representative of similar areas throughout California–ensuring that the PAEC’s success can be replicated statewide. The Clean Coalition will have updates in upcoming newsletters as the project gets underway this summer.