NV5 was retained by the County of San Mateo originally to assist them with updating their Municipal Green Building Policy to introduce ZNE and LEED requirements and to anticipate and exceed upcoming changes to California’s Title 24 building regulations for commercial construction. NV5 created the concepts of ROI tests for energy measure financial feasibility and onsite or adjacent siting for ZNE assets.
Subsequently, NV5 was retained to assist the County with several energy planning and implementation tasks associated with new project development. NV5 introduced the concept of removing renewable energy asset costs from the new project capital costs by bringing in third-party financing using PPA energy service agreements, allowing the County to preserve construction capital for mission‑critical facilities and enabling the County to meet aggressive ZNE goals while improving the overall design, cost, and performance of these energy systems.
NV5 provided analysis of San Mateo County’s new Government Center parking structure to integrate solar PV and EV charging into the structure design. Separate utility electrical meters are being installed for EV and building loads to reduce energy costs through separate EV and solar PV-specific tariffs. NV5’s analysis included multiple scenarios to determine the most economically efficient sizing, location, and metering using net energy metering aggregation (NEM-A) across all site electrical utility meters.
NV5’s EV analysis for the parking structure included research and modeling of EV adoption rates among County staff and San Mateo County residents, phased EV charging station buildout in the garage, analysis of various charging cost policy options on EV charging use and costs to the County and County employees, and a novel protocol for more efficient use of EV parking spaces in a full parking structure.
NV5 is currently managing a competitive procurement for solar PV and battery energy storage systems (BESS) at four separate new construction sites in a combined procurement portfolio that includes a large parking garage mounted PV system, roof mounted PV on four sites, and parking lot canopies at two of the sites. At the new County Center office building, BESS has been designed to help offset diesel backup generation to reduce environmental impact, ongoing costs, and provide grid services.
SERVICES PROVIDED
- County Zero Net Energy Policy Review and Recommendations
- EV Charging Analysis
- Solar PV Designs and Modeling
- RFP Documents, Procurement Assistance, Contracting Support, and Project Management
- EV Adoption Rate and Parking Configuration Analysis
- EV Policy Impact on EV Charging Demand
- Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) Design and Modeling
- Third-party Financing Management