Year in review
In what will go down as a watershed year for SMUD, our work in 2018 put us on a path to a greener, safer and more equitable future.
Service area population
customer accounts (year end)
Employees (year end)
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The 2018 Annual Report shows how SMUD’s work over the last year provides a positive impact for our customers, for our community and for our region. Take a look at just some of the highlights below. |
We began transitioning our residential customers to a new Time-of-Day rate structure in October 2018 and completed the transition in May 2019.
Our new SMUD App hit app store shelves, giving customers an opportunity to more easily manage their account whenever and wherever they want.
The path to a sustainable future
With our Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), we’re committed to moving further and faster than state requirements for clean energy and carbon reduction.
A key component of our IRP is a $1.7 billion investment over 20 years in the electrification of buildings and transportation. Increased electrification will reduce greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality and drive economic development across our region.
We’ve laid out a bold vision for the Sacramento region’s energy future because we know it’s the right thing to do. Our work will leave a lasting impression for generations to come.
The key to a cleaner tomorrow
We’ve supported electric transportation since the 1990s and in 2018 we celebrated over 10,000 electric vehicles on our roads for the first time.
Add to that our designation as the first “Green City” by Electrify America, a Volkswagen subsidiary, and we’re well on our way to making electric transportation an accessible option for everyone.
Increasing the electrification of the transportation section is an important part of our Integrated Resource Plan and a more sustainable future.
Sacramento is home to the first electric school buses in the nation. With support from SMUD's Transportation Electrification Initiative, Twin Rivers School District's fleet now includes 16 electric school buses.
With a goal to make Sacramento a hub for electric transportation research and development, SMUD is leading the creation of the California Mobility Center.
The Center is a public-private consortium of partners that will fund, test and commercialize advances in mobility technologies. These include electric vehicles, battery storage and autonomous transportation.
With its location in Sacramento, the Center is uniquely positioned to leverage cutting-edge public policy, electric transportation expertise and university research.
Building on the success of 2017, we awarded more than $425,000 in Shine Community Development Awards to local non-profits.
The program was launched in conjunction with SMUD’s 70th anniversary to help enhance and revitalize our local neighborhoods.
Nearly 80 applications were received and after an extensive four-stage review process, 21 recipients were selected for Shine awards.
Keeping the lights on
Our Vegetation Management group pruned nearly 75,000 trees in 2018 to reduce one of the leading causes of power outages - branches falling into power lines.
Providing reliable electric service to all our customers is one of our core values. We’re happy to report that our reliability greatly improved in 2018.
The average outage length and outages per customer in 2018 were better than the aggressive goals set by our Board of Directors. Several factors helped improve our reliability including:
- Reducing the impact of car pole accidents by relocating poles and installing visibility strips and RAPTOR barrier systems.
- Using LIDAR technology to inspect and analyze trees around our transmission and distribution lines to identify potential problems before they impact our electric system.
- Installing more remotely operable switches on the 69kV system.
We’re also making sure we can handle future electricity load in our area. We’re replacing Substation A with Substation G to help with growth in downtown Sacramento and are building a new substation in Elk Grove.