ENERGY
Sarah Moseley , an intern from Sacramento State , squares aluminum stock material using a manual mill at the California Mobility Center ramp-up factory in Depot Park . PHOTO BY CARL COSTAS / COURTESY OF CALIFORNIA MOBILITY CENTER
new ways to use energy may include “ power coming back onto the grid from individual sources , like your rooftop ,” Bradford says , or an electric vehicle that charges a home . Ford ’ s all-electric F-150 Lightning truck , coming in spring 2022 , can store enough electricity to charge a home for days . Reservations for the truck reached 130,000 as of September 2021 .
The City of Roseville is also studying what that future environment of energy use looks like , Bradford says . It ’ s critical for utilities to understand how to build the appropriate infrastructure and respond in real time to accumulated energy generated by customers that could be stored , used to address an overloaded grid , or even fed back into the larger energy market . That ’ s what the advanced smart technology control system SMUD is co-developing is designed to do .
As utilities modernize grids to accommodate the growing dependence on electricity , they ’ re simultaneously promoting incentive-based programs that encourage residential and commercial customers to electrify their vehicles , fleets , buildings and homes , and to invest in supportive infrastructure .
“ We ’ re providing a lot of incentives and all sorts of encouragement and education for our ( customers ) to take part in this energy revolution and do this together with us ,” says Scott Blunk , strategic business planner of electrification and energy efficiency for SMUD . Incentives are vital to advance the clean energy economy . Customer adoption drives market demand , which helps scale the technology and reduce the cost .
But there ’ s still a lot of work to do . Research presented at the 2019 Behavior , Energy and Climate Change conference in Sacramento showed knowledge of electric appliances is lacking among the majority of consumers , and misconceptions of cost and efficiency remain high . More education is needed among the majority of plumbers and retailers , and some builders too .
But many homebuilders are already making the shift . SMUD and the City of Roseville offer homebuilders in the region up to $ 5,000 and $ 4,000 , respectively , in incentives per home to build with all-electric appliances : HVACs , clothes dryers , water heaters and induction stove tops that are so advanced in their precision and control when cooking , they leave the beloved gas stove in the dust . And building all electric eliminates the need to install the infrastructure gas requires , which costs about $ 7,000 per home and is passed on to the homeowner , in addition to maintenance and repairs . “ I don ’ t think most
38 comstocksmag . com | December 2021