Palo Alto officials outline Grid Mod pilot, say testing will guide broader rollout

Palo Alto utility staff told the Utility Advisory Commission that the city’s Grid Modernization pilot covers roughly 1,000 homes and is intended to test materials, construction methods and new products before a wider rollout.

Mohammed Fatsa, electric engineering manager, said the pilot will "test feasibility for time, cost, risk, and performance of various materials, prior to going and undertaking a full scale rollout of, of the services." He described Phase 1 as a roughly 7,000‑home citywide effort to replace poles, transformers and secondary wiring, with an estimated completion of the Phase 1 distribution work in 2026. Fatsa said more than 400 homes in the pilot had already been prepared for electrification and gave a target completion for the pilot of February–March 2025.

The presentation emphasized foundation work: replacement of aging poles and transformers, standardizing equipment sizes, and retiring the 4 kV distribution system in favor of 12 kV to improve voltage stability. Staff said materials lead times are a constraint: transformers can take about two years, wire a year and poles multiple months, and that the utility is diversifying suppliers and tightening contract language to limit change orders.

Several commissioners and public commenters pushed staff to integrate newer technology evaluations earlier rather than sequencing them after heavy infrastructure work. David Cole, a member of the public, told the commission that "there's a lot of technology out there that could be quite helpful and could substantially reduce the cost" and urged the city to test alternative technologies during pilot projects. Commissioners raised the example of vehicle-to-grid, distributed energy resources and microgrids and asked when those evaluations would be brought to the commission; staff said work on those topics is underway and will be returned to the UAC as results emerge.

Staff said the Grid Mod rollout is being staged in ten phases over roughly a decade, focusing first on overhead distribution for near‑term reliability wins, then on substation upgrades and targeted undergrounding where appropriate. The presentation noted coordination benefits where fiber buildouts can be timed with electrical work to reduce costs and disruption. Alan (chief operating officer) and George Silva (acting assistant director, electric) said the reliability/resiliency strategy has three components: (1) foundational infrastructure replacement, (2) operational improvements to reduce outage duration, and (3) evaluation of flexible, efficient technologies to optimize the grid.

Commissioners requested clearer, documentable links between the technical program and policy choices: a tighter timeline of when microgrid/vehicle‑to‑grid/system‑protection studies will be completed, a more explicit demand forecast on which capacity upgrades were based, and a public outreach and customer feedback plan tied to pilot outcomes. Staff agreed to add follow‑up detail to future UAC agenda items and to return with timelines for technology evaluations and vendor/consultant engagement.

As staff continue engineering and procurement work, they said they will present periodic updates and that decisions about larger capital commitments and financing will be brought to the Finance Committee and then Council before major issuances or program changes.