May 5, 2021
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) recently renewed its CORE level membership with the UC Irvine California Plug Load Research Center (CalPlug). The utility company pledged $70,000 to support CalPlug’s mission of advancing innovative energy solutions to restore environmental balance.
The focus is to research energy efficiency solutions in emerging technology and behavioral means to mitigate the ever-increasing number and demand of plug-load devices in homes and businesses. Otherwise the projected load demand impact of plug-load devices will be about 30 percent in 2030. To the extent this demand can be contained or decreased, so too will the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), which lead to climate change.
LADWP became a CORE member of CalPlug in 2020. CalPlug conducted related research in 2020 for the LADWP territory that shed light on the changes in customers’ consumption patterns and economic impacts during COVID-19. It learned that low-income households were affected the most.
“LADWP has a strong track record of innovation and leadership as a major municipal utility,” said G.P. Li, the center’s director. “We are privileged to work with LADWP to investigate new opportunities to help build a greener future together. Their continued support will enable us to address key energy issues affecting this region that will benefit all of Southern California and beyond.”
In 2012, CalPlug began collaborating with LADWP, the largest municipal utility in the country. The initial partnership was led by David Jacot, LADWP director of efficiency solutions, and Amir Tabakh, chief of efficiency solutions engineering and LADWP La Kretz Labs.
“The data-driven results of this CalPlug research not only shed light on customer behavioral changes in energy usage consumption patterns but also helped identify otherwise unexpected hardship situations where the needs of some of our customers were addressed more equitably,” said Jacot. “As this partnership with CalPlug continues to advance, we look forward to developing further opportunities for additional, more specific, project-based collaborations like our current work on COVID-19 and energy use in disadvantaged communities.”
Tabakh said, “We had to explore our options to find out what are the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on our infrastructure (e.g., transmission lines, transformers) as well as the billing impacts on our customers while they are using more energy during the day. As a result, we decided to use our valuable partnership with CalPlug and reached out to G.P. Li and his team for their research and potential solutions/directions to educate our staff, customers and utilities throughout the country.”
Last month, CalPlug and its partners, the California Energy Alliance and the California Lighting Technology Center at UC Davis, announced that the California Energy Commission had awarded the team $997,000 in funding to identify, test and recommend commercial and residential plug loads that present the best opportunity for energy savings as part of future energy codes and appliance standards.
CalPlug was established in 2011 to improve energy efficiency in the use and design of plug-load devices. CalPlug focuses on energy efficiency solutions, efficiency evaluations of consumer electronics, standards development, education, public outreach and user behavior studies. CalPlug will address challenges in plug-load efficiency for both residential and commercial buildings by collaborating closely with utilities, manufacturers, advocacy groups, research institutions and energy policymakers.
Last month, the utility company participated in CalPlug’s Earth Day Workshop . LADWP and other guests discussed these emerging and innovative solutions to plug load and demand challenges that need to be overcome for a more resilient and sustainable environment.
– Sharon Henry
