Glendale highlights 38 MW rooftop solar, launches UCLA V2X study to explore vehicle-grid services

Rousan Soloyang, Glendale’s clean energy officer, presented the utility’s clean-energy program portfolio and participation figures on June 1. He said fiscal-year-to-date participation across programs is roughly 15,000 customers, about 13,840 of whom are income-qualified participants in assistance programs. Life-to-date customer solar in the city totals about 38 MW, and fiscal-year installs numbered roughly 500 customers.

Soloyang outlined four funding streams for the clean-energy portfolio—Public Benefit Charge (fund 2910), a solar capital fund, a low-carbon-fuel-standard fund, and water revenue funds for water-conservation measures—and said about half of public-benefit funds support income-qualified programs. He told commissioners that LEDs and many efficient measures are already code-driven, but that the utility includes weatherization and turf-replacement measures as rebate options.

On distributed storage and electric-vehicle integration, Soloyang described an ongoing UCLA-led feasibility study assessing technical and economic drivers for V2X (vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-grid) and managed charging, with a study completion target by the end of the calendar year. He said the study will inform whether demand-response and V2G pilots are feasible locally and whether incentives or financing programs for customer-owned batteries would be warranted.

Commissioners asked program design questions—whether funds could be used for more direct energy-efficiency interventions for low-income customers, whether point-of-sale rebates are feasible, and whether the utility should incentivize customer-owned batteries. Staff said there is currently no active incentive for customer batteries and that pairing storage with rooftop solar could yield distribution benefits, but that the highest immediate priority is to operate and extract value from the large Grayson battery bank as it comes on line.

Soloyang also noted pilot and program counts for EV charging ports (life-to-date ~700 ports) and highlighted participation in residential off-peak EV charging incentives and small-business installation programs.