District to receive nearly $2 million from state CHIRP funds after emergency generator emissions
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Summary
Staff reported CARB will release CHIRP mitigation funding statewide and Sac Metro Air District expects almost $2 million to support projects to reduce emissions from emergency power sources and build community resiliency.
The Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District reported that the California Air Resources Board (CARB) will release funds from the Climate Heat Impact Response Program (CHIRP) this year and that the district expects to receive about $2 million to fund mitigation projects.
Amy Roberts, director of the district’s engineering and compliance division, briefed the board on CHIRP background and why the program was created after extreme heat events in 2021 and 2022 allowed certain power sources to operate outside permit limits. "Those executive orders…meant more air pollution in our region and other parts of the state," Roberts said, describing the state requirement that excess emissions be mitigated and targeted to impacted communities.
Roberts and other staff cited a local example: a north‑county data center (NTT) ran 28 large diesel backup generators during several days of the 2022 emergency, producing about 560 operating hours across the fleet over four days. When district staff totaled the emissions, they said the generators produced roughly 3.8 tons of NOx over those four days — about 0.95 tons per day — which district staff estimated represented approximately 15 percent of the region’s stationary-source NOx on a given hot summer day.
Mark Lautzenheiser, director of monitoring, planning and rules, said it is difficult to attribute ambient Air Quality Index (AQI) changes to a single source because ozone is a regional pollutant, but that the agency’s experience supports the conclusion that emergency generator operation contributed to higher ozone and NOx during that period. "The exact impact of these emissions was tough to judge, but just based upon our past experience, we do anticipate that it did have an impact," Lautzenheiser said.
The district noted that CARB had delayed releasing CHIRP funds while collecting usage data and working through state budget constraints. Roberts told the board that CARB notified air districts in the fall that funding had been secured; "Sac Metro Air District will receive a good portion of that funding to the tune of almost $2,000,000," she said.
District staff said grants and incentives teams are developing guidance with CARB on allowable uses, with priorities including projects located in impacted communities and 0‑emission or energy‑storage solutions — for example, battery storage to reduce reliance on diesel backup generation. The district said the CHIRP guidelines have not been finalized; staff described ‘‘cleanest‑technology’’ eligibility as a goal but said final project menus are still under development.
Why it matters: The CHIRP funds are intended to mitigate excess emissions created during emergency operations and to invest in resiliency measures that reduce reliance on diesel emergency generation in disadvantaged communities. The board received the update; no action was required.
