Energeia is helping the Accelerate to Zero Emissions (A2Z) Collaborative, formed in 2019, develop a roadmap to position the San Diego region as a national leader in transportation electrification through an EV Strategy document. The Collaborative involves San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), the County of San Diego, San Diego Air Pollution Control District (SDAPCD), and the City of San Diego. 

Project Goal

Gas-fueled internal combustion vehicles are the largest contributor to air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) in the San Diego region and throughout the state of California. California has gained national recognition for its achievements in reducing emissions and promoting the adoption of zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) through innovative state-level programs, policies, and legislative bills. The A2Z Collaborative stresses the importance of regional collaboration in order to leverage statewide momentum, attract necessary investments, and address specific local concerns and priorities. 

The EV Strategy builds upon the San Diego Regional Gap Analysis released in July 2021, which modeled ZEV trends and identified barriers to adoption.  

Energeia Service

Energeia completed a full review of existing conditions surrounding federal and statewide policies, regional plans and strategies, ZEV best practices and strategies published by other utilities and governments, and evaluating the 2021 Gap Analysis for its impact on developing A2Z strategies. 

Federal and statewide requirements and funding opportunities were brought into Energeia’s bottom-up EV Uptake Model, which found that the San Diego region is on track to achieve its share of state targets for ZEV adoption, but will still be 229,000 vehicles below the Gap Analysis target of 771,000 vehicles by 2030. Energeia collaborated with AECOM and the A2Z team to decide the key determinants for ZEV adoption that could be configured in the EV Uptake Model, and then modeled each of the High Impact Strategies that the Project Team developed to close the gap between current Baseline forecasts and the Gap Analysis Target.  

Project Results

Energeia’s modeling results show that applying the 10 final Strategies results in a 189,210 increase in cumulative ZEVs in 2035, as compared to the Baseline forecast. The final Strategies include increasing the percentage of zero-emission vehicle miles traveled (VMT), installing ZEV chargers equitably across rural areas and Communities of Concern, providing equitable and accessible opportunities to learn about ZEVs and ZEV infrastructure, providing ZEV workforce training opportunities, accelerating publicly accessible ZE infrastructure, lowering policy and financial adoption barriers, updating building codes and streamlining ZE infrastructure permitting, ensuring sufficient local grid capacity, encouraging fleet transition, and supporting innovative pilots to transition cars, trucks, and buses to zero emission. 

The most impactful strategies were found to be those that accelerate the deployment of public charging infrastructure, employ demand response and managed charging programs to control customers’ energy usage and take advantage of incentives, and develop optimized electricity rates for Level 2 chargers to allow customers to take advantage of lower rates during off-peak hours.  

Project Impact

The A2Z Collaboration is in process of developing and finalizing the EV Strategy document, but draft strategies have been posted on the A2Z website.