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Sunnyvale climate update: 2024 emissions spike tied to electricity supply, heavy‑duty vehicle modeling
Summary
Sunnyvale’s 2024 greenhouse‑gas inventory rose compared with 2023, the city’s environment staff told the City Council on Oct. 28, citing a temporary increase in electricity‑sector emissions from Silicon Valley Clean Energy and a state model update that raised the countywide share of diesel for medium‑ and heavy‑duty vehicles.
Sunnyvale’s environmental services staff told the City Council on Oct. 28 that the city’s 2024 greenhouse‑gas inventory rose compared with 2023, leaving the city about 12% below 1990 levels overall.
At a study session, Madeline Kerr, environmental programs manager, said the single‑year increase was driven mainly by two data issues: a temporary uptick in emissions from the city’s electricity provider, Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE), and an update to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) county‑level fuel‑use model that increased the modeled share of medium‑ and heavy‑duty diesel vehicles. “We saw a 17% increase in transportation emissions,” Kerr said, and SVCE reported a non‑negligible share of electricity coming from unspecified grid sources in 2024 while it awaited new renewable resources.
Why it matters: Sunnyvale’s Climate Action Playbook sets 2030 and 2045 targets tied to reductions in building energy, transportation (VMT and zero‑emission vehicles) and waste. Staff stressed that short‑term model changes can obscure the local effects of city programs such as added EV chargers, municipal building electrification and edible‑food recovery.
The sustainability coordinator, Christina Raby, highlighted local progress that she said is not reflected in the inventory: nearly 300 heat‑pump HVAC upgrades, 121 EV charger installations, 169 heat‑pump water heaters and increased municipal EVs (from 22 to 56). She also said Sunnyvale recovered nearly 700,000 pounds of edible food in 2024 as part of a county program aligned with state law (SB 1383).
Council asked multiple technical questions. Council member Mellinger pressed staff to determine whether any portion of the increase represented a genuine local rise in driving (for example, return‑to‑office patterns) versus artifacts of modeling; staff said CARB’s updated model showed lower light‑duty VMT but higher county‑level fuel use and lower overall fleet fuel efficiency, and that staff had sought CARB’s documentation and would back‑apply the new model to prior years for context. Council member Chang asked whether SVCE’s shortfall in 2024 resulted from procurement delays; staff said SVCE faced intense market competition in a milestone year for the state’s renewable portfolio standard and had chosen to invest locally rather than buy RECs to offset 2024 emissions.
Direction and next steps: Staff recommended reducing the comprehensive greenhouse‑gas inventory to every two years so staff can spend more time obtaining and validating local data. Council members generally supported exploring alternative or supplemental transportation metrics to better capture local VMT trends — for example, third‑party mobility datasets, targeted automated vehicle or bicycle counts, or pilot sampling at select corridors. Staff said they would continue annual implementation reporting and pursue more granular local metrics and back‑testing of the CARB model.
What staff did not do: Council did not adopt new regulatory requirements this evening. The presentation was a study session and a request for policy direction; no new ordinances or budget approvals were made.
Sources: Presentation and Q&A, City of Sunnyvale Climate Action Playbook update (Oct. 28, 2025).
