SMUD announces zero-carbon plan, with goal of retiring 2 gas power plants, retooling others
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has announced a renewable energy transition plan that it says will create clean tech jobs while also “retiring, repurposing or repowering” all five of the utility’s natural gas power plants by 2030, including two by 2025.
SMUD’s board of directors voted Wednesday to approve the 2030 Zero Carbon plan, which the utility district in a Thursday news release proclaimed as the “most ambitious carbon reduction plan by a large utility in the nation.”
The zero-carbon plan calls for the retirement or repurposing of the McClellan Gas Power Plant in 2024 and the Campbell Soup Cogeneration plant in 2025, while eliminating use of all fossil fuels “as soon as possible but no later than 2030,” according to a presentation shown in Wednesday’s board meeting. California’s statewide climate goal is to reach zero-carbon status by 2045.
The plan says the remaining three SMUD-operated natural gas plants, which include the Cosumnes Power Plant, would be “retooled” to “minimize emissions.”
SMUD in the announcement said its plan “provides 90% of our power from renewable sources,” with major additions made in solar, wind and geothermal energy over the next nine years. These energy sources currently make up about 50% of SMUD’s output, according to the news release.
SMUD says the transition plan would create thousands of “new regional clean tech jobs” as well as new business partnerships in California’s capital.
It will also rely on a big push for more rooftop solar installations at its customers’ residences.
“Sacramento consistently ranks as one of the dirtiest air basins in the country and it disproportionately impacts our most disadvantaged residents,” board President Nancy Bui-Thompson said in a prepared statement. “Although we have had one of the most aggressive carbon-reduction plans in the nation, we realized we must do more.”
This story was originally published April 29, 2021 at 11:43 AM.
