Energize Fresno

The Energize Fresno program integrates advanced energy community strategies into current and future projects for increased grid reliability, efficiency, and resource conservation to overcome local and state level barriers to deployment of district scale advanced energy technologies.

The Energize Fresno program has been a coordinated, community-based planning initiative to design a roadmap for developing an energy opportunity zone (EOZ) - a concentration of projects, initiatives, and programs - along the Blackstone Corridor and within downtown Fresno.

The portfolio, which includes 15 building projects, two broader programs, and two electric vehicle charging infrastructure projects, involves commercial and residential projects across a range of building types and neighborhoods. Implementing the full portfolio is estimated to cost $35.1 million and save participants $4.6 million annually net of financing costs (average portfolio wide payback period of seven years), and generate nearly $1 million annually in positive cash flow from:

• 9.4 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in annual savings from energy efficiency.

• 296,000 terms of annual savings in natural gas.

• 17.2 GWh in on-site distributed solar.

• 9.4 MW in peak demand reduction from demand response and grid interactive on-site electricity storage.

• 7,340 metric tons (metric ton equals roughly 2,205 pounds) in annual greenhouse gas emissions reductions.

The Energize Fresno resources will be available to local government staff outside of the City of Fresno as a case study and tools, which can be replicated to expedite developing advanced energy communities in other localities in California.