California City of Dublin awards multi-million contract for smart energy solutions

The City of Dublin in the US state of California has awarded a $21.2 million contract for the deployment of smart energy solutions and smart city upgrades.

The city has selected Willdan for projects engineering, development, construction, commissioning, as well as savings measurement and verification services.

The projects will include the installation of energy efficiency, smart city, and resilient energy infrastructure across 20 sites. The energy efficiency upgrades are a result of a study conducted by Willdan, utility PG&E and the K-12 Schools programme.

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Willdan will also deploy distributed energy resources across 10 sites to help the city ensure a secure energy supply whilst decarbonising energy generation. A total of 1.4MW-DC in solar energy capacity will be installed and paired with energy storage to ensure power resiliency during peak periods and extreme weather events. Some 22 electric vehicle chargers will be installed.

By reducing energy usage in buildings, the city seeks to improve consumer services and to avoid high peak energy demand periods, a development that would enable renewable energy to be used to provide baseload power.

The projects will be completed in the next 18 to 24 months to help the city achieve its “immediate and long-term needs while supporting the energy efficiency, infrastructure, and decarbonisation goals outlined in our Climate Action Plan,” said Laurie Sucgang, Dublin City Engineer and Assistant Public Works Director.”

Willdan will also provide operations and maintenance services for infrastructure and technologies to be deployed over a period of three years.

The projects will help Dublin align with a goal set by the state government to produce 100% of electricity using renewable energy by 2045.

Today, the state’s electricity mix is already more than 60% carbon-free and about 36% of that comes from renewable sources, predominantly wind and solar, according to the California Energy Commission.

However, massive investments are required to build new and upgrade existing renewable energy infrastructure for the goal to be met, according to a report released by the commission in March this year.

The report states that California will need to build up to 6GW of new renewable and storage resources annually to meet the 2045 goal.