REPORT TO COUNCIL
SUBJECT
Title
Approval of Twelve (12) New Positions for Silicon Valley Power and One (1) New Position in the City Attorney's Office to Support Silicon Valley Power's Expanded System
Report
COUNCIL PILLAR
Deliver and Enhance High Quality Efficient Services and Infrastructure
BACKGROUND
In November 2019, the Silicon Valley Power (SVP) management team met to discuss the strategic priorities for SVP. At that time, it was identified that the SVP was going to experience significant continued electric load growth, and SVP needed to develop a capital improvement strategy to meet this growth. Staff determined the need to develop both near-term and long-term strategies to accommodate approved growth and develop the necessary infrastructure plan options. The City Council has taken many actions in support of this growth as a part of the SVP's System Expansion Plan, including approving master service agreements with engineering consulting firms (RTC's 20-854, 22-166, and 23-737), accepting SVP's Three-Year System Growth Plan Strategy (RTC 21-871), and adopting SVP's system plan for California Independent System Operator's (CAISO) Transmission Planning Process (TPP) FY2023/24 (SVP System Expansion Plan CAISO TPP FY2023/24) (RTC 22-1172).
SVP staff has worked non-stop on a number of projects required to increase electric capacity in Santa Clara to meet the needs of SVP's customers. The City Council has also taken some actions to increase staff, but additional staff is needed both to support the delivery of required infrastructure projects as the expanded systems are built and to support ongoing operations and maintenance of an expanded system.
Silicon Valley Power Growth
As discussed with the City Council on multiple occasions, the demand for electric power from SVP's customers is expected to almost double over the next ten (10) years. During the recent heat wave, SVP reached a new system peak demand of 711 MW. This exceeded the peak of 703 i...
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