Huntington Beach Advanced Energy Community Blueprint
Combining regulatory, financial, and permit streamlining strategies with a real-world development example to produce a shovel-ready Advanced Energy Community.
University of California, Irvine
Recipient
Irvine, CA
Recipient Location
37th
Senate District
73rd
Assembly District
$1,402,875
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
The project ended in July 2018. Using the UrbanOpt and DEROpt tools to determine the most optimal technical and economical suite of clean energy technologies, the team developed a master community design for the Oak View AEC. Because of the mild climate and limitations with aging building stock, the plan consists of the most impactful energy efficiency upgrades (lighting and plug-loads), as well as community-scale solar PV systems mounted on carports and rooftops, and energy storage. These systems were sized to reduce the overall electrical use by the maximum of nearly 94 percent. Finally, to encourage community acceptance, the team offered a ten-week STEM course to the elementary school's after-school program, and held a series of workshops to introduce residents to green energy concepts providing materials in Spanish and playing games familiar to the predominantly Hispanic community.
The Issue
Electrical utilities face challenges with aging infrastructure and load capacity constraints that limit where certain technologies can be installed. Disadvantaged communities face their own set of challenges that often prevent their clean energy needs from being met. While integrated, community-scale systems that combine local renewable energy sources, energy storage, and control technologies could provide benefits to help the utility and community, new tools and approaches are needed to design these systems in a manner that meets the needs of both groups.
Project Innovation
This project designed an integrated energy system to transform the disadvantaged Huntington Beach community of Oak View, into an advanced energy community (AEC). The team worked closely with ComUNIDAD, a community organization, to ensure the community needs were factored into modeling scenarios. The project team developed new design tools to simulate an integrated energy infrastructure on a community-scale, expanding the capability from the existing single-building design tools. The team evaluated multiple scenarios to determine the most optimal set of clean energy technologies and business and financial models to align the community's energy needs within the constraints of the existing electricity infrastructure.
Project Benefits
Senate Bill 350 (2015) sets a 50 percent renewable energy standard and a goal of doubling energy efficiency savings by 2030. Local governments can play a critical role in achieving this goal by helping facilitate community-scale deployment of Integrated Distributed Energy Resources (IDER) such as energy efficiency, onsite renewables, demand response, and electric vehicles. This project piloted innovative planning, permitting, and financing approaches and tools to help improve the business case for IDER adoption at the community-scale.
Consumer Appeal
Greater deployment of advanced energy technologies at a community scale will increase consumer familiarity and comfort with Zero Net Energy homes and communities. This will increase the likelihood of consumers choosing to live in
Affordability
This tools and approaches piloted in this project will reduce the time and costs needed to design future community-scale IDER projects.
Economic Development
This project piloted new approaches and develop new planning tools that can increase the financial attractiveness and overcome some of the common obstacles of deploying community-scale IDER projects, especially in disadvantaged c
Key Project Members
Jacob Brouwer
Subrecipients
County of Orange/City of Huntington Beach
U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Altura Associates, Inc.
Match Partners
Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas)
Southern California Edison
University of California, Irvine
County of Orange/City of Huntington Beach
U.S. Department of Energy, National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Altura Associates, Inc.
