On Monday, the Pasadena City Council approved and adopted the 2023 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP). The Plan identifies multiple approaches to transition to the policy goal of powering Pasadena entirely with carbon-free electricity by 2030.
An IRP is an electricity system planning document that describes how a utility plans to meet its energy and capacity needs in compliance with state guidelines. It has to be updated every five years.
Last January, Pasadena adopted a resolution which sets a goal of sourcing 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2030, earlier than the state target, which is 2045. The resolution directs the city manager to use the 2023 IRP process to meet this goal.
According to Pasadena Water and Power, the 2023 IRP was modeled to meet Pasadena’s clean energy targets.
The IRP that was approved aims to reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions from over 900,000 metric tons in 1990 to 10,000 metric tons by 2028.
Prior to finalizing the IRP, there were a number of scenarios that were evaluated.
“The first three [scenarios] are 100 percent carbon-free by 2030,” said Robert Castro, PWP Power Resource Planning Manager. “Scenarios four and five are reference cases and scenario six is a sensitivity time study that also looks at emerging technologies.”
According to Castro, Pasadena has chosen Scenario two to move forward.
Scenario two focuses on Distributed Energy Resources, specifically solar and storage to meet needs.
Castro said this scenario is the “deepest decarbonization out of all the carbon-free scenarios.”
“Scenario 2 provides the greatest pathway, the greatest capacity additions on our goal towards carbon-free by 2030,” he added.
At the meeting, the City Council agreed to allow PWP to amend the draft IRP to add a provision that will require PWP to submit an optimized plan to get to 100 percent carbon-free by 2030 no later than June 2024. As agreed upon by the City Council, the optimized plan must be developed with a third party consultant, which is a green energy expert.
“We understand this goal is challenging and that it is ambitious. It’s not entirely clear that we can get there,” said Councilmember Jason Lyon before making a motion approved unanimously. “We will not make 2030 if we don’t have a plan.”
“What we need and I think we all agree on this now, is an optimized plan to get to 2030, and I think to do that, we need a third party consultant who is a green energy expert to help us on that. And we need them to answer not just to PWP but directly to the City Council,” added Lyon.
The PWP was asked to return to the City Council with a dashboard concept that could be used to assist in the future monitoring, communication and reflection of current or forecasted status in eight months.
Currently, PWP gets power from a variety of sources including coal, hydropower, natural-gas-fired generators, renewable energy such as solar and wind power, and power PWP purchases on the wholesale market.
“I want to express gratitude that we were able to gain a unanimous decision while giving some recognition to the hard work that lies ahead for all of us as we do our level best to get to a carbon-free Pasadena by 2030,” said City Manager Miguel Márquez.
When asked if the City was still committed to achieving the 2030 goal, Márquez said “absolutely.”
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