LA’s Bold, Equitable Energy Vision

The nation’s largest municipal utility, serving Los Angeles,
wants to move to 100% clean energy by 2035. To do that, the
utility needs to significantly boost renewable energy generation
and it’s banking on the rapid development of energy storage
technology. In this episode of Grid Talk, host Marty Rosenberg
talks with Simon Zewdu who is the Director of Transmission
Planning, Regulatory Processes and Innovation at the Los Angeles
Department of Water and Power (LADWP).


The price tag to reach 100% clean energy is estimated as high as
$86 billion for increased generation, transmission, and
distribution.


“We need to significantly increase the capacity of existing
transmission lines that we have. The Department owns and operates
about 3,600 miles of transmission lines that traverse in five
western states. We need to operate those. Not only that, we need
to look into how we can come up with some new corridors,
collaborate with other agencies to build new transmission lines
to be able to support the load within the City of Los Angeles.”


Equity will be center stage, as the utility works to bring
affordable energy transformation to all customers.


“Everything will be looked at from a prism of equity so that we
monitor it on a regular basis and report to our communities
whether we have met our equity targets,” said Zewdu.


Mr. Zewdu has been with LADWP for 20 years with duties spanning
from substation design to project management, strategic planning,
and special projects. He holds an undergraduate degree in
Electrical and Computer Engineering and an MBA in finance. He is
a registered Electrical Engineer in the State of California.