Background: Utilities are seeking ways to encourage Electric Vehicle (EV) drivers to charge their vehicles during off-peak periods when overall electricity system demand is low, as well as the associated emissions profiles of the electricity being delivered.

Electric utilities have a large role to play in enabling and advancing the infrastructure necessary to support an electrified transportation system and accelerate the deployment of EVs across multiple customer segments. In addition to driving greater EV penetration through investment in infrastructure and education, utilities also are seeking ways to encourage EV drivers to alter their charging behaviors such that their charging aligns with periods of lower overall system demand as well as lower emission profiles of the associated generation sources that power electricity needs during those periods. By doing so, utilities can contribute to greater EV adoption through their programs and to overall reduced GHG emissions.

Action: In late 2021, Atlantic City Electric will offer a portfolio of EV rebate programs to support the deployment of EV chargers for residential and commercial customers, workplace charging, and public charging. The portfolio will provide make-ready investments and rebates to support approximately 3,200 charging ports for residences, public spaces, fleets, and workplaces. Our offerings include:

• Public Charging – Offer incentives to cover a portion of the installation costs for 1,100 privately owned/operated Smart Level 2 (L2) and direct current fast charging (DCFC) ports in locations available to the public.
• Residential EV Charging Program – Offer 50% rebates (up to $1,000) to cover the installation of Smart L2 EV charging equipment in homes and offer a new EV rate option for residential customers that encourages them to charge their vehicles during “off-peak” hours, making at home charging even more affordable and climate-friendly.
• Multifamily Building EV Charger Rebates – Offer rebates to cover a portion of installation costs for 200 Smart L2 EV charging ports in multifamily buildings. At least 20% of the charging ports will be sited at buildings located in overburdened communities and will receive rebates covering 100% of installation costs.
• Workplace EV Charger Rebates – Offer rebates to cover 50% of the installation costs for 450 Smart L2 EV charging ports for employee parking lots and company vehicle fleets at businesses across South Jersey.
• New EV Fast Charging Station Rate – Offer a new rate option for owners of public EV fast charging stations that will help attract private investment in fast chargers and support the continued expansion of charging infrastructure in South Jersey.

GHG Impact: Replacing a gasoline vehicle with an electric model in New Jersey is estimated to reduce annual CO₂ emissions by more than 5,000 pounds per year.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) received approval from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) to implement a suite of energy efficiency programs that will provide residential and business customers with no-cost energy assessments, an array of incentives for energy efficiency upgrades, rebates on energy-efficient products, and a variety of other offerings to help them use less energy and save money. The company's programs will save customers money, create clean, sustainable jobs, improve air quality, help improve equity in South Jersey communities, and help combat the effects of climate change.

Action: ACE's new programs can help customers save more than $550 million in energy costs. The programs include:

Residential Products and Services

• Efficient Products: Provides incentives and rebates, as well as a convenient online marketplace, for energy-efficient products such as lighting, electric appliances, heating and cooling equipment, and more.
• Home Performance with ENERGY STAR: Provides customers with single-family homes with a free energy audit and energy efficiency action plan, as well as interest-free financing and other incentives, to encourage them to pursue comprehensive upgrades.
• Home Energy Reports: Offers guidance on low- and no-cost energy-saving strategies and motivates customers to engage in energy-saving behaviors through personalized home energy reports.
• Quick Home Energy Check-Up: Provides renters and homeowners with an initial assessment of their home's energy use, installs simple energy-saving measures at no cost and identifies energy-saving opportunities for further consideration.
• Moderate-Income Weatherization: Provides customers with moderate incomes with no-cost home energy audits and up to $7,500 in home energy retrofits, such as building shell and weatherization measures, lighting, HVAC replacements and water-saving measures.
• Multi-Family Program: Provides multi-family buildings with energy assessments, installs standard energy-saving measures, and develops a project plan for comprehensive energy-savings opportunities tailored to the customer and building, as well as access to interest-free financing to undertake the plan.

Commercial Products and Services

• Small Business Direct Install: Provides small businesses, non-profit organizations, municipalities, schools, and faith-based organizations a no-cost energy assessment, as well as incentives and interest-free financing to undertake energy efficiency upgrades.
• Efficient Products: Provides incentives for commercial and industrial customers to install high-efficiency equipment and controls, including energy-efficient lighting, appliances, heating and cooling equipment, and food service equipment, among others.
• Engineered Building Solutions: Assists medium to large commercial customers, including municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals, and non-profits, in identifying and undertaking large energy efficiency projects through a no-cost, in-depth facility audit, tailored incentives and interest-free financing.
• Energy Management: Provides incentives to assist mid-size to large commercial and industrial customers with optimizing equipment and processes through tune ups for building equipment and changes for HVAC, building automation, controls, industrial processes, and electrical systems.

GHG Impact: ACE’s energy efficiency programs are projected to save more than 170 gigawatt hours of electricity over the first three years of the program and avoid more than 70,000 tons of CO₂ emissions.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) has a large fleet of cars and trucks to support the electric system and respond to emergencies throughout South Jersey.

Action: As vehicles are due for replacement, ACE will purchase all electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles for its passenger cars and small SUVs and, as technology permits, plug-in hybrid models for its medium and heavy-duty vehicles.

• Convert 92 passenger vehicles and small SUVs to all electric or plug-in hybrid by 2025
• Convert 68 medium duty and heavy-duty vehicles to vehicles with idle-mitigation and plug-in hybrid capabilities by 2025

GHG Impact: By switching from conventional gasoline vehicles to electric models, ACE will avoid more than 400,000 pounds of CO₂ emissions by 2025.

Background: Measuring and evaluating the energy usage in our buildings with energy efficiency audits and Building Energy Benchmarking reporting helps to eliminate waste and implement energy saving measures to reduce the GHG footprint of our company buildings.

Action: Atlantic City Electric will complete an energy efficiency audit and review our metering data at our Atlantic Regional Office in 2021. Audit opportunities will be implemented by 2025. Potential opportunities include:

• Reducing “over illumination” in some buildings
• Installing lighting controls such as motion sensors
• Replacing less efficient Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) Systems

GHG Impact: Once the audits are completed and opportunities identified, Atlantic City Electric will prioritize upgrades that provide the greatest GHG reduction benefit at the least cost. Building energy use accounts for approximately 40% of our GHG footprint in New Jersey.

Background: As a part of Atlantic City Electric’s (ACE) Strategic Facilities Plan, all locations are evaluated to determine the adequacy and safety of facilities to support the work needs of the company and the teams that occupy the spaces. These evaluations help to manage facilities and make them more efficient, reduce our own energy use and improve the overall lighting quality of our buildings.

Action: ACE’s goal is to install LED lighting technology, both indoor and outdoor, as building renovations occur between now and 2025.

GHG Impact: Replacing a conventional incandescent light with a high efficiency LED is estimated to reduce energy use by about 30%.

Background: In addition to sequestering carbon, trees save energy by providing shade and reducing the urban heat island effect. In 2011, Atlantic City Electric (ACE) was one of three utilities to launch a partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation’s Energy-Saving Trees program. ACE continued its partnership in 2020 to expand the urban tree canopy to create shade, reduce urban heat-island impacts, and sequester carbon by donating trees to be strategically planted across the ACE region.

Action: In 2020, through our partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation’s Energy-Saving Trees program, ACE has provided more than 900 free trees to customers throughout South Jersey. As part of ACE’s commitment to a cleaner and brighter future, this partnership helps customers conserve energy, with the potential to lower energy bills by 15-30%.

GHG Impact: Since 2013, ACE planted or gave away 3,000 trees to more than 1,600 customers, sequestering an estimated 91,000 pounds of carbon equivalent to over 300,000 pounds of CO₂. Over a 20-year period, the trees are projected to save approximately 220,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. In total, PHI has donated over 45,000 trees since, having an even larger greenhouse gas impact across all the areas we are privileged to serve.

Background: Atlantic City Electric is committed to converting its fleet to all electric and plug-in hybrid electric models. We will install additional chargers at our facilities to support our growing fleet of electric vehicles and to provide workplace charging for our employees.

Action: To meet our 2025 fleet electrification commitments, we will install 18 additional chargers at our Atlantic Regional Office to support fleet vehicles being converted to electric or plug-in hybrid electric models.

GHG Impact: Replacing a gasoline vehicle with an electric model in New Jersey is estimated to reduce annual CO₂ emissions by more than 5,000 pounds per year.

Background: New Jersey has leading renewable energy mandates, including targets for local solar. Enabling increasing amounts of solar on the electric grid requires system upgrades to both expand capacity of electric feeders and customer-facing technology to accelerate and optimize the siting of solar from a customer and system perspective.

Action: In 2020, Atlantic City Electric (ACE) deployed a “Connect The Grid” system to better support customers and contractors in tracking solar interconnection projects. ACE will also continue to update its current online “solar hosting capacity map,” including information on cross-border feeders, to help customers and solar project developers identify appropriate locations on the grid to site local solar projects. In addition, ACE will continue to provide customers with an online “Solar Toolkit” – a one-stop shop for solar applications and installation information.

GHG Impact: New Jersey ranks among the top ten states for installed solar capacity and solar energy is a key element of the state's renewable energy goal (52.5% renewable energy by 2030). In total, the ACE system currently supports over 500 MW of solar, which produces an estimated 846,000 MWh annually, avoiding more than 300,000 tons of CO₂ emissions each year.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) substations use sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆) gas to insulate high voltage electrical equipment, such as switches and circuit breakers. SF₆ is a powerful greenhouse gas, and gas leaks from equipment can contribute to climate change.

Action: ACE will maintain its overall SF₆ leak rate to less than 1% by performing leak inspections and replacing aging equipment. ACE will also evaluate the use of equipment that does not require SF₆.

GHG Impact: By monitoring for leaks and upgrading equipment, we minimize SF₆-related GHG emissions. SF₆ has a high global warming potential and accounts for approximately 10-20% of the GHG emissions associated with ACE’s operations.

Background: New Jersey has ambitious goals for solar energy, including community solar, to ensure that all New Jersey electricity customers can directly participate in the benefits of solar energy. Atlantic City Electric (ACE) is working to enable additional community solar to be interconnected and integrated into the electric grid.

Action: ACE supports the development of community solar by actively participating in the development of pilot program rules and requirements and by implementing modifications to the ACE billing system to provide billing credits to community solar participants. ACE supports establishing a permanent community solar program that provides additional focus on advancing participation in community solar by low- and moderate-income customers, including through utility ownership and operation of targeted projects, as authorized in New Jersey’s Clean Energy Act of 2018.

GHG Impact: Each megawatt hour of solar energy in New Jersey will avoid approximately 800 pounds of CO₂ emissions per year.

Background: Energy storage is critical to New Jersey’s sustainable energy future as the technology can enable increasing amounts of renewable energy on the system by allowing us to better use solar and wind energy, which do not always operate during times of the day when electricity demand is highest by customers. Batteries can also help to manage the grid, creating a more resilient system by mitigating power interruptions. Integrating increasing quantities of energy storage into distribution system to help meet New Jersey’s clean energy goals is a priority for Atlantic City Electric (ACE).

Action: ACE is working with the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and other stakeholders to facilitate the interconnection of additional renewable generators and to identify and install, where possible, new technologies such as energy storage and smart inverters to enhance grid operations. At this time, ACE is installing a 3 MW/2 MWh utility owned and operated battery energy storage system to help defer the construction of an additional substation and address the growing demand for electricity.

GHG Impact: Battery storage projects have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by storing wind and solar energy for later use. GHG savings will take place under the following conditions:

1. battery charging through renewables,
2. battery installation to support additional hosting capacity,
3. battery displacement of fossil-fueled generation back-up, and
4. selective grid related battery charging and discharging base based upon marginal grid emissions.

Batteries have other benefits as well – they can be strategically deployed to avoid costly distribution system upgrades. As we build a more robust and resilient grid, batteries can provide a cleaner source of backup power in the event of a grid outage.

Background: Better access to information on energy efficient products can help customers make energy choices that save money and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Providing Atlantic City Electric (ACE) customers with access to an online marketplace with energy efficient products offers convenience and personalization for each customer.

Action: ACE will launch an online “Energy Marketplace” to provide customers with the opportunity to identify, compare and purchase energy efficient equipment, lighting, appliances and other devices in one convenient and secure online location.

GHG Impact: Through the Energy Marketplace, ACE will encourage smarter energy choices that save energy and money for customers and reduce emissions by connecting customers to not only energy saving products, but also the financial rebates available to them.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) has a partnership with Sustainable Jersey to offer and administer the Sustainable Communities Grant Program. These grants are intended to help municipalities plan for, protect and improve public spaces such as local parks, natural areas, and recreation resources, as well as build resilience in their respective communities. Grants can be used in combination with other funding sources to cover a portion of the expenses associated with developing and/or supporting priority programs, not otherwise covered by state or county programs.

Action: This ACE program awards a total of $75,000 annually to fund municipally supported environmental stewardship and resiliency projects in its service territory. ACE is committed to continuing this program through at least 2023.

GHG Impact: By funding projects that preserve open space and tree canopy, restore and expand wetlands and other critical habitat, and enable resilience and clean energy projects, such as solar and storage, the program will not only have a positive impact on mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, but also help communities adapt to and prepare for climate change, while encouraging healthy activity and creating community connections.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) is a major employer in southern New Jersey, and we recognize that the actions of our team members can impact the overall greenhouse gas footprint of the region. We have an opportunity to encourage innovation, action and engagement by supporting an Eco-Team Employee Resource Group (Eco-Team ERG) that could serve as an employee-driven organization focused on identifying, elevating and implementing eco-friendly ideas to reduce energy use, minimize waste, increase recycling, and promote environmentally friendly transportation options.

Action: ACE will establish an Eco-Team ERG chapter, encouraging the use of public transit, measuring and monitoring employees’ personal GHG footprint, and providing energy-saving and GHG-reducing tips for at home and at work.

GHG Impact: The Eco-Team ERG will establish and execute various GHG reduction solutions in the coming years.

Background: In the Clean Energy Act of 2018, New Jersey set an ambitious goal of 35% renewable by 2025 and 50% renewable by 2030. In 2019, the Murphy Administration released the Energy Master Plan, which set a target 100% clean energy by 2050, defined as 100% carbon-neutral electricity generation and maximum electrification. Meeting these goals are central to New Jersey achieving its overall climate change and clean energy targets.

Action: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) will transition its building electricity use to 50% carbon-free electricity by 2025, 5 years ahead of the state’s mandate using a combination of strategies including the purchase of NJ Tier 1 and Solar RECs up to 50% of a building’s energy usage.

GHG Impact: By accelerating the renewable energy target for our building electricity use, including for our electric vehicle charging, we estimate saving more than 2,000 metric tons of CO₂ emissions by 2030.

Background: Severe weather is the leading cause of power outages in the United States (U.S.) and costs the U.S. economy billions of dollars per year. Outages caused by severe weather are expected to rise as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of storms, causing flooding and major wind events, heat waves and droughts, and changes in historic weather patterns. Atlantic City Electric (ACE) customers are becoming more reliant on electric service to power their daily lives. To maintain safe, reliable service for all customers in the face of climate change, we are taking action to make the system smarter, stronger and cleaner to build resilience and to enhance our preparedness for major weather events.

Action: ACE has designed its system and processes to withstand extreme weather events, respond to outages and restore service quickly, and build redundancy and resilience into our facilities. For example, ACE has an extensive vegetation management program to support strategic tree trimming. In addition, ACE equipment installed below street level is designed to operate even if submerged for extended periods of time. Finally, we conduct extensive Summer and Winter Readiness analyses, including engaging with our customers and key stakeholders to remind them of steps they can take to prepare for extreme weather events and inform them of actions we are taking including:

• System Hardening, Redundancy and Resilience: We are investing for the future by making our infrastructure even more resilient to climate change, by modernizing the grid through dedicated initiatives such as PowerAhead, Barrier Island Feeder Reliability Project, Smart Energy Network, and our Drone Inspection program. As part of these projects, we are installing steel poles that can withstand winds as high as 125 miles per hour, building and upgrading substations in a manner that addresses potential for flooding and other extreme weather events, and increasing system redundancy.
• System Automation: ACE has taken steps to make the grid smarter through increasing automation and use of advanced technologies. Efforts include, among others, the installation of reclosers and the activation of distribution automation schemes to help minimize the impact of outage events on our electric distribution system; the technology allows for the quick identification of outage events and locations and enables automated problem-solving. The pace and scale at which grid modernization and associated technologies can be deployed are determined by the regulatory approvals for these investments and funding requests.
• Storm Preparedness and Response: ACE launched a Major Storm Response Improvement Project in 2020, which brings together subject matter experts from across the company to review the processes and procedures in place for storm preparedness and response. The project will identify and implement improvements to the company’s Summer and Winter Readiness programs, ranging from operations and logistics, to customer engagement and communications to ensure the Company is prepared for the future.

GHG Impact: ACE’s actions to enhance the overall resilience of the electric system, in addition to other actions included in its Climate Change Commitment as part of the company’s Path to Clean initiative will help the company to maintain safe, reliable, clean and affordable service for all customers in the face of climate change.

Background: New Jersey’s Energy Master Plan calls for new efforts for utilities to accommodate and encourage integration of distributed energy resources (DER) and increased electrification. It requires utilities to establish Integrated Distribution Plans to expand DER and electric vehicle (EV) charging and encourage non-wires alternatives. It also supports proactive plans to ensure the grid can handle bi-directional power flows through enhanced interconnection standards, such as vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and grid-to-vehicle (G2V).

Action: As an electric utility, we are responsible for providing safe, affordable, reliable and sustainable electric service to all customers in our service area. Atlantic City Electric (ACE) is undertaking ongoing analysis and modeling to understand the investments needed to support future DER and EV adoption. ACE will harness new modeling tools to forecast, prepare for, and support greater DER penetration, while the company continues to expand electrification and enable DER integration.

GHG Impact: Facilitating the adoption of beneficial DER technologies and increased electrification are critical components to lowering greenhouse gas emissions and will help create a pathway for greater access to lower-emission resources.

Background: New Jersey has one of the nation’s most ambitious offshore wind goals with a mandate of 7,500 MW of offshore wind by 2035. Offshore wind is critical to meeting New Jersey’s goal of 50% renewables by 2030 and 100% clean energy by 2050. Ultimately, the amount of offshore wind may exceed the current mandate to meet the state’s clean energy goals by 2050.

Action: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) is helping implement New Jersey’s offshore wind goals by working with offshore wind developers to facilitate interconnections to ACE transmission facilities as well as support efforts to build out the state’s offshore wind industry and green economy, including manufacturing and port facilities dedicated to enabling the offshore wind industry in South Jersey. ACE is also participating in the PJM competitive process to build the transmission facilities needed for offshore wind.

GHG Impact: Renewable and zero-emission energy is critical to meeting New Jersey’s clean energy goals, as the electric sector accounts for about 20% of the state’s GHG emissions. Achieving New Jersey’s clean energy goal by 2050 with 7,500 MW or more of offshore wind will help New Jersey significantly reduce its GHG footprint.

Background: Access to energy usage data provides our customers with the information they need to track their energy use from day to day, including identifying energy waste and potential inefficiencies. Atlantic City Electric (ACE) is committed to empowering our customers with tools and tips that allow them to better manage their usage, save money – and reduce emissions – through a web-based platform, such as My Account.

Action: ACE commits to providing our customers with the information they need to effectively manage their energy usage. In doing so, ACE plans to expand data availability to all customers to help them better manage their energy use. We are also exploring online tools that would enable customers to share their energy usage with third-party providers.

GHG Impact: By providing detailed data and energy efficiency resources, customers can make smarter energy choices that will reduce emissions.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) proposed to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU) a Smart Energy Network program to replace all existing customer meters with smart meters. Smart meters are commonly used in the industry and are a key piece to modernizing the grid in New Jersey to provide benefits for customers and advance a clean and more resilient energy future for South Jersey. Smart meters will provide numerous benefits such as restoring power faster and more efficiently, enabling new tools and information to customers allowing for greater control over energy usage, and providing greater visibility to ACE into the distribution system.

Action: ACE received approval from the BPU for the Smart Energy Network program. ACE will replace all 560,000 customers’ meters over a 24-month timeframe, beginning in mid-2022. Robust customer and stakeholder engagement will accompany this exciting technological upgrade for our customers and communities.

GHG Impact: By reducing outages on the system, we reduce the number of times that our vehicles need to be deployed. These reductions in truck use alone are estimated to avoid almost 400 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year. In addition, the Smart Energy Network will enable a host of new energy efficiency programs for customers. For example, in Maryland, automated meters enabled more than 40% of the energy efficiency programs offered to customers through EmpowerMD.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) wants to encourage and ensure that our future workforce has a broad and deep understanding of the causes and impacts of climate change and a head start on what can be done to both help bend the emission curve and help us all adapt to a changing climate. By focusing on educational opportunities at pivotal moments in a person’s lifetime, starting from middle school, we recognize the ability to make this happen. The New Jersey Student Climate Challenge provides students and educators with an opportunity to learn about actionable ways to address the climate crisis and create climate resilience and mitigation projects that could benefit their schools and communities.

Action: ACE, Exelon, the Drumthwacket Foundation and Sustainable Jersey partnered to create the New Jersey Student Climate Challenge, a program to foster the growing role young people play in addressing the climate crisis. The initiative builds on New Jersey’s efforts to increase climate literacy among young people across the state, including its first-in-the-nation effort to incorporate climate change education across all K-12 state academic standards.

GHG Impact: In its inaugural year, the New Student Jersey Climate Challenge reached over 400 students, in 24 schools, and resulted in more than 16 actionable projects being submitted by participating students across ACE’s service area in South Jersey. This program is helping to educate the future workforce on climate change, energy and STEM, while encouraging participants and their networks to take action to reduce their global footprint.

Background: Atlantic City Electric (ACE) currently offers municipal customers an option to upgrade their streetlights to light emitting diode (LED) and has worked with several municipalities to upgrade legacy streetlights to cleaner and more efficient lighting.

Action: With the approval of ACE’s Smart Energy Network, conversion of ACE’s legacy streetlights to Smart LEDs has the potential to deliver modern lighting that is more efficient, requires less maintenance and will allow customers to customize lighting preferences, including dimming and on/off scheduling. To date, ACE has converted over 15,000 streetlights to LED in cities and towns across our service territory, including Atlantic City, North Wildwood, Wildwood, Woodbine and Beach Haven.

GHG Impact: According to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, high efficiency LED streetlights have been found to reduce energy use by 30-50%, and LED lamps last much longer than traditional technologies, reducing the costs associated with replacement and maintenance. These energy savings also translate to CO₂ reductions.

Background: As part of the Exelon and Pepco Holdings merger commitment, Atlantic City Electric (ACE) committed $6.5 million to create a Workforce Development Program to create a pipeline of future candidates to build a smarter, stronger and cleaner energy system. ACE partnered with the South Jersey Workforce Development Board and six local community colleges (Rowan, Camden, Atlantic, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester) to recruit candidates from the ACE region, targeting under-resourced communities, and administer a dynamic training program with a focus on both traditional energy careers and energy efficiency career opportunities.

Action: ACE has committed to expanding its energy efficiency curriculum by including training on smart meter installation, greenhouse gas education, the impacts of solar and wind energy, and its integration of hybrid vehicles into its fleet. The ACE Workforce Development Program hosts subject matter experts in the energy efficiency field to reinforce the importance of energy efficiency to the workforce of the future. Since 2018, ACE has completed 14 cohort classes totaling 92 graduates who have successfully completed the CAST test.

GHG Impact: Our Workforce Development Programs educate community members on climate change impacts and how our industry is evolving to meet the challenge. They also enable participants and their networks to be part of an exciting occupation and to take action to reduce their own global footprint.