Silicon Valley Power Plans Big Strides to Accommodate Growth this Year

With Santa Clara’s power company’s boom in growth, the utility is ramping up a variety of projects this year.

At its most recent meeting, the Santa Clara City Council heard a bi-annual update from Silicon Valley Power (SVP). In 2024, SVP saw two new peaks, topping out at 722 megawatts, nearly scratching the system’s 750-megawatt capacity.

Manuel Pineda, chief electric utility office, said SVP employees expect the city’s power consumption to double in the next decade. SVP aims to ramp up its capacity to more than 1,300 megawatts.

In 1987, the city had 12 substations. That number increased to 27 by 2020. This year, SVP will add two more substations to the 32 that are online.

SVP’s main focus is accommodating load growth, but Pineda also detailed a few other priorities. Among those priorities are a maintenance program, a power acquisition strategy, and a succession plan.

Focusing on feasibility and being more aggressive in securing power purchase agreements is essential, Pineda said.

“Historically, if you look at where we’re at 10 years ago, we were always very competitive. The pricing is what it was. The pricing wasn’t as competitive for renewable energy,” Pineda said. “With the goals of the state, a lot of cities and utilities have much more aggressive goals for renewable energy. Things got more competitive.”

In 2024, SVP added 12 employees. The previous two years, it added 24 employees.

Connection to Newark’s LS Power Station through the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), a nonprofit that oversees operation of California’s electricity market, is slated to come online in 2028. Although the 1,000 megawatts that project will provide are not designated, Pineda said the city is “in a very good place to receive that power.”

Because the city cannot accommodate all the big customers that are interested in building in Santa Clara, the system expansion will likely necessitate some “tough policy decisions” down the road, Pineda said.

Three major expansion projects are also getting underway.

In 2024, $130 million in bond money and another $240 million in 2026 will fund rebuilds and expansions of two receiving stations. The Scott and Kifer receiving stations will go out for bid this month, Pineda said. He called them “significant, significant” projects. Another $166 million in bond money will fund upgrades and expansion to SVP’s northern receiving station.

A $50-million, 115-kilovolt transmission line is 60% designed. Securing easements for that project will continue through May, with construction slated for late 2026.

Material sourcing, weather and considerations around the FIFA World Cup and Super Bowl games are complicating the expansion, Pineda said.

“These are some of the most complex projects I’ve ever worked on,” he said. “There is a lot of pieces that are happening with these projects.”

Other, more minor, technology upgrades are also progressing. Software to maximize grid reliability and the city’s outage management system, scheduled to come online this summer, are among the smaller, but important, initiatives.

Customer rebate programs and SVP’s 50-megawatt battery storage program will also help take stress off the grid, Pineda said.

“We are getting to that peak and the system operating limit, so those 50 megawatts is going to help us peak-shave during those periods where we think we are getting close to the system operating limit of the city,” Pineda said.

When asked about what share of power data centers are using, Pineda said it “depends on the data center; there is no number for each one,” but he did not provide an aggregate number.

Mayor Lisa Gillmor called the amount of growth SVP is seeing “mind-boggling.”

The Santa Clara City Council unanimously noted and filed SVP’s report.

Contact David Alexander at d.todd.alexander@gmail.com

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