SMUD chief executive Paul Lau stepping down after leading the utility for 5 years
The chief executive of the Sacramento Municipal Utility District plans to step down this summer, ending a nearly 45-year career at the public utility.
Paul Lau has served as CEO and general manager for the past five years. In that time he has led the utility’s pursuit of an ambitious zero-carbon goal and overseen SMUD amid a shifting energy market, as utilities look to meet the needs of residents switching to electric home appliances and cars, and as the proliferation of data centers has raised questions about how utilities will react to meet demand.
Lau, 63, announced his planned retirement Friday morning. An exact date for Lau’s departure was not announced. Lau has agreed to remain CEO for six months or more to allow a smooth transition, a spokesperson said.
Lau took on the chief executive role in October 2020, just as SMUD’s board voted on the “moonshot” goal of eliminating 100% of greenhouse gas emissions from its electric generation by 2030, said Gregg Fishman, a board member. Lau and his staff came up with an aggressive plan that has received attention from companies and utilities around the world, and which Lau presented at the 2024 United Nations Climate Change Conference.
Despite headwinds like tariffs, supply chain snarls and higher costs for solar panels and other components, Fishman said, the initiative is having an impact.
“We’re definitely having an impact on local air quality,” Fishman said. “And we’ve been able to do this while keeping our rate increases essentially in line with inflation.”
SMUD Board President Dave Tamayo said in a statement that Lau has become regarded nationally and internationally as a visionary utility leader.
“We’re exceptionally fortunate to have had Paul at the helm of SMUD for the last five-plus years,” Tamayo said. “His impact spans far beyond the walls of SMUD.”
Tamayo said Lau’s work inspired organizations locally and across the country to adopt carbon-reduction goals. The SMUD Board of Directors will begin a comprehensive search for a new chief executive, he said.
Lau said in the utility’s release that leading SMUD has been “the honor of my lifetime.”
“SMUD’s purpose is to improve the quality of life for our customers and community, and SMUD is positioned to continue delivering on that for the 1.5 million people we serve, through strong financial management, low rates, reliable service, visionary clean energy goals, innovative customer programs, community investment, a strong board of directors, and dedicated, smart and passionate employees,” he said. “SMUD is well-placed to continue to lead the utility industry and our region for decades to come.”
Lau joined SMUD in 1982 as a student intern while studying electrical engineering at Sacramento State. He spent his entire professional career at the district, rising through engineering and executive leadership roles before becoming CEO and general manager.
Today the utility’s service area has a population of about 1.5 million in the greater Sacramento area, and SMUD employs about 2,400 people.
During Lau’s tenure, the utility expanded workforce training and customer-focused programs across the capital region. SMUD became the first publicly-owned utility to join the state’s Energy Imbalance Market, a wholesale energy-trading market that allows SMUD to buy low-cost renewable energy in real time, and sell excess energy to generate additional revenue.
The utility also navigated several high-profile controversies. Earlier this week SMUD canceled its power purchase agreement in the Coyote Creek solar project, an effort that received strong opposition from environmental and tribal communities. And in November, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered the utility to stop providing details on customers’ electricity usage to law enforcement agencies in most cases, after a 2022 lawsuit alleged that the data sharing led to false assumptions about customers’ activities.
Lau serves on the boards of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council and Valley Vision. He is a director-at-large of the Sacramento Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce. He will make decisions about those roles on an individual basis, as he gets closer to retirement, a spokesperson said.
Fishman said he was confident that SMUD will find a great replacement. Still, he added, Lau’s long tenure at SMUD gave him a deep understanding of the institution that few other people, if any, have.
“Paul spent his entire career at SMUD,” Fishman said. “As much as he deserves a long, happy and relaxing retirement, we’re going to miss him... He brings so much institutional memory to the table.”
This story was originally published January 9, 2026 at 10:25 AM.
