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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2026-10-02 Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Summary MinutesCLIMATE ACTION & SUSTAINABILITY COMMITTEE SUMMARY MINUTES Page 1 of 7 Special Meeting October 2, 2026 The Climate Action and Sustainability Committee of the City of Palo Alto met on this date in the Community Meeting Room and by virtual teleconference at 2:33 p.m. Present In-Person: Veenker, Burt Lu Arrived at 2:44 p.m. Absent: None. Call to Order Mayor Veenker welcomed everyone and called the meeting to order. The clerk called the roll, noting 2 present. Mayor Veenker announced that Councilmember Lu would be arriving shortly. In-Person Public Comment 1. David C. said that for anybody listing on the city calendar an event larger than 50 people, the city should require a communication to please ride your bike to reduce congestion, to address greenhouse gas goals, and for better health. He wondered how this could be incorporated in messaging. 2. Erica B. gave observations about some streets in her neighborhood. She noted streets that are too wide cost more tax dollars, use petroleum, and lower property values. They cause faster traffic and unsafe crossing conditions. They cause more rain to go to San Francisquito Creek, causing flooding. She thought narrowing streets would save money, make neighborhoods more attractive, give residents more room, make it cooler to reduce air conditioning use, and increase revenues for the city. Verbal Report A. Staff Comments Councilmember Burt said they are aware of the benefits of white roofs but they have not explored advancements in reflective pigments for asphalt. He asked if they could follow up on that. Director of Public Works Brad Eggleston confirmed they could follow up on reflective pigments for asphalt. He said Cal Ave was just repaved and they tried to get a lighter pigmented or other type of cool pavement but it did not work out. He shared that the Clean Air Healthy Homes SUMMARY MINUTES Page 2 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 event is October 3 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the Mitchell Park Community Center and he described the event. He described Bike Palo Alto, which is on October 4 from 1 to 3 p.m. at Fairmeadow School. He described the Green at Home Tour, which is on October 10 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. He said the heat pump water heater discount campaign is continuing through the end of the month. He shared that they have seen nearly an 80 percent increase in program signups from about 25 signups to 45 and a corresponding increase in installations. They reached a milestone of 900 heat pump water heater retrofits installed and they are hoping to hit 1,000 by Earth Day. Progress on their advanced commercial HVAC program continues. They held a contractor webinar in September that was successful with 3 of their most active Palo Alto contractors signing up to learn about city permitting processes and rebate program rules. This was the first step toward those contractors being added to a courtesy contractor list that they plan to provide to interested commercial customers. Other requirements will be having completed at least one project in Palo Alto and holding the valid licenses and insurance. Chief Communications Officer Meghan Horrigan-Taylor presented a communications briefing for January through June. She noted that there are work plan items related to communications and engagement as part of the 2026-2027 S/CAP Work Plan. She referenced printed and digital information related to the Work Plan items. She noted that they have launched their new theme, Sustaining Our Future. That theme and campaign have started with infographics to build awareness around the city's goals and share information about their progress. The campaign helps them to note areas of focus around cutting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and increase awareness around the city's goal of reducing GHG emissions by 80 percent. A lot of campaigns have dropped the 2030 reference in order to streamline the information. She showed a poll on Instagram with feedback from the community. The next slide referenced the Small Habits, Big Impact Campaign, which is a way for them to share tangible ways to advance their goals. They have launched printed materials, including mailers, utility bills, flyers, and doorhangers. There is an online community toolkit. She talked about having consistent messaging and noted they recently launched a website about community and health benefits of electrification, which they would appreciate feedback on. Lastly, she presented a slide comparing January through June 2026 progress to their 2025 benchmark. This showed improved engagement and awareness. She said she could take feedback from the group offline. City Attorney Christopher Jensen reminded the group that the topic was not agendized for discussion, so the council would have to keep questions brief. He would avoid comments. Councilmember Burt had questions but acknowledged Attorney Jensen's statement. He wondered what it would take to adopt David C.'s suggestion as a policy. He asked if there was a way to make it so it was the default policy. CCO Horrigan-Taylor said they have put this as an item to ensure that staff add this to their calendar listings and her staff reviews a lot of the listings. She thinks they will see improvement. She wouldn't say it is a policy but it is a standard to include that information. Councilmember Burt was glad to see the emphasis on health and safety and wondered if health and safety goals could be included within the broader theme. CCO Horrigan-Taylor said now that they have a landing page, they are able to share information. Councilmember Burt asked if they have 2025 reduction numbers. Director SUMMARY MINUTES Page 3 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 Eggleston said those numbers are being finalized and are coming to City Council tentatively on November 2. Councilmember Burt asked if they could add a metric of per capita reduction under their progress. Director Eggleston replied that the answer was the same as for the 2025 inventories. Councilmember Burt wondered if they could consider a contest through the Youth Climate Advisory Board (YCAB) for short social media videos. CCO Horrigan-Taylor said they work with YCAB to create videos and she could talk to them about opportunities. Director Eggleston said they could take it back as a question. Councilmember Lu asked what new partnerships or mediums they might take and whether there are any riskier ideas that are being considered. CCO Horrigan-Taylor mentioned their collaboration on the doorhanger, noting they do those types of collaborations. Councilmember Lu asked about short-form video and what kinds of collaborations could be done. CCO Horrigan- Taylor reiterated that they are actively working with YCAB around video. They are doing testimonials with residents. Councilmember Lu asked if they are doing advertising about the induction cooktops available in the library. CCO Horrigan-Taylor answered affirmatively. Mayor Veenker asked if they could add an item about outdoor air pollution under the health tab. CCO Horrigan-Taylor thought they could. B. Committee Member Comments and Announcements Mayor Veenker mentioned that she will attend the United Nations COP31 in Türkiye in November and she is happy to take any messages from the group with her. Agenda Items 1. Update on Electric System Long Duration Resiliency; CEQA Status – Not a Project Utilities Chief Operating Officer Terry Crowley gave a slide presentation, first discussing background. In 2026, City Council discussed local energy resource costs as they relate to long duration resiliency. At that time, staff presented information that microgrids are not cost effective. Council directed staff to continue to engage with the Utility Advisory Commission (UAC), Climate Action & Sustainability Committee (CASC), and City Council within 2026 regarding long-duration resiliency and microgrids. An update was provided to the UAC on September 2, 2026. Last Wednesday, they provided discussion of this topic with the Climate Action Workgroup. They anticipate taking the item to the Council in November or December. The next slide highlighted microgrid cost trends. COO Crowley said not much has changed from 2026. Staff monitors reports from the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR) on the cost of utility-scale battery storage. The 2023 report estimated cost of battery storage at $482/kWh but expected costs to drop to between $255/kWh and $403/kWh in 2030. In 2025, those estimates lowered to $334/kWh and they forecasted that those costs could fall to as low as $147/kWh by 2035, a roughly 50 percent reduction in cost within a 10-year period. COO Crowley clarified that costs for land and solar are not included. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 4 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 The next slide illustrated storage benchmark. A 4MW, 4-hour battery could serve roughly 300 single-family homes for a 24-hour period. The rough cost would be $5.4M but could drop to $2.4M by 2035. It would only support about 1 percent of residential customers and does not include solar costs. COO Crowley noted the costs are high and benefit is limited. Staff will continue to monitor for improved value and plan to bring it back to UAC and City Council through the Integrated Resource Plan scheduled for 2027. COO Crowley next talked about systemwide resiliency. He pointed out hazards that can be mitigated and could be included in the Capital Improvement Program. He said the distribution system becomes fractured during events, so they may look at more redundancy in the system or more abilities to supply customers. He next talked about UAC Feedback. UAC suggested that staff work with the Office of Emergency Services (OES) to determine which hazards to build for. They discussed considering what long-term resiliency means and whether they need to plan for 24 hours or even weeks of outages. COO Crowley talked about the importance of educating customers on the certainty of power outages and how they can assess their own needs and prepare. He talked about developing a benefit-to-cost analysis for local hazard mitigation with and without estimated reliability benefits. He discussed refining the goals and benefits of proposed mitigation measures and considering situations where local utility-scale energy storage systems make sense. The next slide focused on Climate Action Workgroup feedback. They still feel there is value in educating about resiliency of customer-owned solar and battery storage. They feel there is a continued need to lower barriers for customers seeking solar and storage. EVs present an opportunity for in-home resiliency; the city could educate on how to leverage this resource. The workgroup feels that small battery packs coupled with community resiliency/charging centers should be explored. They feel cost effectiveness of customer-owned solar and storage should continue to be monitored. They feel a dollar value for a customer's perceived value of reliability should be developed in order to rank alternative reliability expenditures. Finally, they thought a good approach for the city would be to start small, gain knowledge, and prepare to scale when costs are favorable. The next slide showed staff recommendations. They recommend that the CASC recommend City Council direct staff to continue monitoring and provide updated estimates for local utility-scale battery storage to the UAC with the 2028 Integrated Resource Plan, which will start work in 2027. Staff recommends that City Council direct staff to review and propose reasonable hazard mitigations with recommended capital improvement projects. Responding to public comments, COO Crowley said staff continues to work to lower barriers such as permits. They are revising rules for interconnection for solar and trying to find ways to leverage technology. They are having internal discussions about meter collars and AC disconnect for residential customers. Mayor Veenker thanked COO Crowley for the presentation. She thought they should be as comprehensive and flexible as possible in trying to facilitate ways of having backups. Councilmember Lu asked if the permitting and interconnection rules coming back would include fees. COO Crowley said yes; Staff is working to bring fees related to electrification back to Council for readoption. Councilmember Lu agreed with the public commenters about removing SUMMARY MINUTES Page 5 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 barriers and having microgrids at strategic locations. He agreed with vehicle optionality. He agreed it is not the right time to prioritize community-scale microgrids. He commented that, looking at the bigger picture of costs and benefits and the fact they are paying for the trolley project battery storage, batteries may have value of arbitrage or delaying certain grid improvements. He thought those benefits had not been acknowledged and was not sure if that was part of the calculation that will come back in 2027 or 2028. COO Crowley said he was trying to focus on long-duration resiliency. He said there may be some mutual exclusivity of looking at arbitrage and looking at being ready to serve power. They have to work through policies on that and what their risk tolerance is. He noted that the trolley project is an economic tool. Councilmember Lu thought they should be ready with the calculations so they would have a fuller picture when it is time. He thought they should explore ways to plan for optionality for microgrids without committing significant resources as they plan grid modernization. COO Crowley has directed engineering staff to leave space open for potential future battery storage with substation improvements. They would leave that space open for a mobile substation. While they would have the storage to potentially use for arbitrage and cost savings, if the circuit feeders that reach the customer are disrupted, they still have to find a way to repair those quickly during major events or find a way to quickly reroute power to the customer. Councilmember Lu asked what they have learned from past long-term outages and if they model out critical resilience scenarios. COO Crowley said they have learned that proactively replacing equipment is very important. They look at not loading their assets to 100 percent to leave capacity available for emergencies. Councilmember Lu encouraged planning for these scenarios in a systematic way. Councilmember Burt asked if the estimated cost of $334/kWh is in 2025 or if it is the revised 2030 estimate. COO Crowley said the 2025 report relies on 2024 data. Councilmember Burt said it was $482/kWh in 2023 based on 2022 data, so from 2022, it went from $482 down to $334, which is a significant drop. Looking at the projection, he noted that it would be between $147 and $339 by 2035, with the $339 above the 2025 cost. He did not think that made sense. COO Crowley agreed but said those were the numbers. There is uncertainty with the scale of the project and the economic or political environment. He is looking forward to seeing what the 2027 report shows. Councilmember Burt thought federal subsidies have not been on storage but on generation. COO Crowley said there are still some tax incentives for energy storage. Councilmember Burt looked forward to the 2027 report and was optimistic because of advancements in technologies. He asked about the fee for residential EV charging, which COO Crowley would try to find out. Councilmember Burt was glad to hear they were again looking at the somewhat unique solar disconnect requirement and asked when they might hear back on changes. COO Crowley said engineering staff are drafting changes to Rule 27, so he imagines it will be in front of Council in January. Councilmember Burt asked if that would include an estimation of the cost reduction for a customer. COO Crowley had not thought to include that but said they could try and look at what the meaningful improvement of the changes would be. Councilmember Burt mentioned that lower electricity costs put them with lower return on investment on solar and microgrids. He recalled past staff reports focusing on quantifiable SUMMARY MINUTES Page 6 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 economics and recalled a question about the value placed on resiliency, including by households. He wanted an update on the percentage of households that are installing rooftop solar and what portion of them are installing home storage. Two years ago, he heard it was a high percentage even though the economics did not favor it. He wondered if they could put the package of benefits together, some quantifiable and some more qualitative, so they could look at all the factors together. COO Crowley said they could attempt to do that. They could have one column with strict economics but look at spending more money on reliability to shorten outages and the value of those avoided customer outages. The NLR has a tool to predict what that value is. They are starting to touch on that in order to understand how to incorporate it into capital improvement planning. Councilmember Burt questioned the comparative value of having utility-scale battery systems locally versus paying for them as part of their utility-scale solar generation where they typically have storage with batteries. He was interested in understanding the economics versus community benefits. He was interested in projections for EVs and a vehicle-to-grid program. COO Crowley thought establishing processes for people to allow connection to happen would have to be quickly followed by rate structures that incentivize certain behaviors but match market conditions and costs incurred by the utility. Councilmember Burt said the airport is a microgrid opportunity that has advantages over most other opportunities. Lastly, he talked about the importance of appraising and aggregating risks such as earthquakes, wildfires, etc. Mayor Veenker wondered what flexibility there is or how to choose between using reserve space at substations for batteries or moving in a mobile substation. COO Crowley explained the thought process, including risk tolerance. Mayor Veenker commented that needs might decrease as more people adopt backups and wondered how they would figure that out and apply it over time. COO Crowley talked about things they could do to scale back costs. Mayor Veenker liked the idea of community resilience centers but thought there would be change over the coming years. Item 1 Public Comment 1. David C. thanked COO Crowley for the presentation and for including the comments from the working group. He thought a lot could be leveraged off of reducing barriers. He thought a $1,000 rebate to individual homeowners could be beneficial. He agrees with microgrids for community centers and wherever they have solar. He said the cost of permitting is an issue. He said requiring an AC disconnect is redundant. 2. Stephen R. agreed with David C.'s comments. He thought the focus is too much on centralized utility battery deployment. He said it is not a good model for Palo because of the cost of real estate. He talked about vehicle-to-grid capability. He thought they should solicit programs involving collaboration with an automobile manufacturer. He thought the city should provide incentives for battery backup in order to provide resilience. SUMMARY MINUTES Page 7 of 7 (Sp.) Climate Action and Sustainability Committee Meeting Summary Minutes: 10/02/2026 MOTION: Councilmember Burt moved, seconded by Mayor Veenker, to recommend the City Council: 1. Direct staff to continue monitoring and provide updated estimates for local utility scale battery storage to the UAC with the 2028 Integrated Resource Plan. 2. Direct staff to review and propose reasonable hazard mitigations with recommended capital improvement projects. MOTION PASSED: 3-0 Virtual Public Comment No Request to Speak Future Meetings and Agendas Director Eggleston announced that they will update on multifamily residential electrification programs as well as nonresidential climate action programs at the next meeting. The meeting is scheduled for November 13 but will need to be rescheduled. They will publicize when they have the date. Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned at 4:07 p.m.