Department Of Water And Power Research Articles

Artificial deep neural network enables one-size-fits-all electric vehicle user behavior prediction framework

As greener mobility becomes the norm with the advent of electric vehicles (EVs), a natural question arises: how big of a change are we seeing in terms of the stochastic energy demands imposed by EVs? There have been considerable difficulties in analyzing the adoption of all types of EV infrastructure due to the lack of publicly available individual EV user data across various service providers, such as distribution network operators, EV aggregators, EV users, utilities, regulators, and academics. In this study, we introduce the JETPANN (Joint EV energy consumption and charging duration Training Prediction using Artificial Neural Networks), a novel jointly trainable artificial deep neural network framework for predicting stochastic EV user behavior by predicting their stay/charging duration and energy consumption simultaneously. We used a large-scale dataset of individual EV users’ charging transactions collected at a multi-site UCLA campus, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the Port of LA, the City of Santa Monica, and the City of Pasadena over a five-year period. This includes more than 50 EVSEs (Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment) and 216 EV charging points. Over 50,000 real-time transactions were recorded in our database with 341 distinct EV users. In this research, essential attributes of each charging session were identified, extracted from our database, and then fed into our JETPANN network. Using a jointly trained framework, our AI-enabled network predicts the stay/charging duration and the energy consumption of all the recorded EV users with an accuracy of above 99 percent. The proposed technique was tested and validated using all the collected historical charging data from individual EV users via realizing mean-absolute errors of training loss versus validation loss. Utilizing hyperparameter tuning and semi-grid search, the JETPANN with semi-optimized hyperparameters was achieved with the lowest mean-absolute errors of 0.927 and 0.068 in predicting stay/charging durations and energy consumptions, respectively, in a jointly trainable framework. This study demonstrates the potential of the JETPANN framework in the prediction of EV users’ behavior by using large-scale real-world data collected from a diverse pool of EV users, including faculty and students, occasional and frequent users, and early and late adopters.

Los Angeles Board of Water and Power Commissioners Lead Transformation of Nation's Largest Municipal Utility

Mia Lehrer and Nicole Neeman Brady are both on the all‐female Board of Commissioners for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). In this article, they discuss their experiences instituting governance approaches and board engagement strategies and initiatives in both the conservation of resources and the elevation of women in the traditionally male‐dominated utility fields.

Labor resistance and municipal power: Scalar mismatch in the Los Angeles Green New Deal

In 2019, the Mayor of Los Angeles announced the Los Angeles Green New Deal (LAGND), an ambitious plan to shift the city's power system to 100% renewables by 2045. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)—the electricity provider for the city and the largest municipally-owned utility in the United States—began a consultation process with local stakeholders and energy system modelers to determine possible scenarios to accomplish this goal. While the LAGND was lauded by environmentalists and progressives both within Los Angeles and beyond, it has been heavily opposed by the IBEW 18, the union that represents nearly all employees at LADWP. IBEW 18 has staged protests, created political advocacy organizations, and funded anti-decarbonization political candidates. This paper draws on 20 semi-structured interviews and other secondary materials to understand the union's oppositionand to demonstrate some of the unique challenges that municipal-scale Green New Deal (GND) plans face. We argue that the tensions between the mayor's office and unionized utility workers can be explained, at least in part, by three instances of scalar misalignment—or mismatch—that arise from trying to undertake a GND plan at the city level. These include mismatch between: (1) the scales of political activism and engagement between the mayor and the union, (2) the aims of the GND narrative and the limits imposed by the jurisdiction of the City of Los Angeles, and (3) the current and future geographies of the electric power system and related infrastructure and its path dependencies.

The curtailment paradox in the transition to high solar power systems

Summary Rising penetrations of variable renewable energy (VRE) in power systems are expected to increase the curtailment of these resources because of oversupply and operational constraints. We evaluate the effect on curtailment from various flexibility approaches, including storage, thermal generator flexibility, operating reserve eligibility rules, transmission constraints, and temporal resolution, by using a highly resolved realistic system. Results reveal two aspects of a curtailment paradox as the system evolves to higher solar penetration levels. First, thermal generator parameters, especially in restricting minimum operating levels and ramp rates, affect VRE curtailment more in mid-PV penetration levels (∼25%–40%) but much less at lower (∼20%) or higher (∼45%) PV penetration levels. Second, although allowing VRE and storage to provide operating reserve results in significant operating costs and curtailment benefits, the price suppression effect from these resources reduces incentives for PV to provide operating reserves with curtailed energy.

Potential for increased hydrothermal arsenic flux during volcanic unrest: Implications for California water supply

The hydrothermal systems associated with the restless high-threat volcanoes at Lassen and Long Valley, California, each release large amounts of arsenic (As) to surface waters – ~6 and ~8 metric tons/yr, respectively. The hydrothermal As output can increase during volcanic unrest, as illustrated by a two-fold increase during unrest at Lassen in 2014–15. During that period of unrest, increased As concentrations and fluxes were measured up to 75 km downstream from the Lassen source, in Mill Creek near the confluence with the Sacramento River. In eastern California, the Long Valley hydrothermal system feeds into the Los Angeles Aqueduct (LAA), and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) actively manages the LAA system to remove hydrothermal As. In 1980, during a series of ~Mw6 earthquakes, the discharge of a particular group of hydrothermal vents in Long Valley increased approximately 7-fold, though the total increase in As flux to the LAA system at that time is unknown. The likely mechanism for increased hydrothermal discharge in each case is permeability enhancement due to strong ground motion. A review of the global literature on earthquake hydrology suggests a worst-case scenario of a roughly 10-fold increase in permeability, with commensurate increase in the hydrothermal As flux persisting for days to months. Here we evaluate the potential impact of such increases in hydrothermal As flux on the California water-supply system.

“The Romance of Water and Power ”

From the publicity with which it opened the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913 to the completion of its new headquarters on Bunker Hill in 1965, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) has employed architecture as advertising for image enhancement and to increase its sale of electricity and water. This study of selected DWP structures, 1924–1965, finds that the message of architectural boosterism can become obsolete before the buildings do. DWP’s architecture presents a complicated legacy and a challenge for the future.

Synchrophasor-based real-time state estimation and situational awareness system for power system operation

State estimation is a critical functionality of energy management system (EMS) to provide power system states in real-time operations. However, problems such as failure to converge, prone to failure during contingencies, and biased estimates while system is under stressed condition occur so that state estimation results may not be reliable. The unreliable results further impact downstream network and market applications, such as contingency analysis, voltage stability analysis, transient stability analysis, system alarming, and unit commitment. Thus, operators may lose the awareness of system condition in EMS. This paper proposes a fully independent and one-of-a-kind system by integrating linear state estimator into situational awareness applications based on real-time synchrophasor data. With guaranteed and accurate state estimation solution and advanced real-time data analytic and monitoring functionalities, the system is capable of assisting operators to assess and diagnose current system conditions for proactive and necessary corrective actions. The architecture, building components, and implementation of the proposed system are explored in detail. Two case studies with simulated data from the subsystems of Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) are presented. The test results show the effectiveness and reliability of the system, and its value for real-time power system operations.

Regulatory challenges in evaluating the abuse deterrent properties of novel opioid products

Warmer and drier conditions over the past decade in California, in addition to court-mandated restrictions on the Sacramento River Delta water supply, have generally reduced the amount of water resources available to Southern California. These constraints on water supply led water agencies to implement a range of water conservation and watering restrictions programs, mostly targeted at outdoor use. The City of Los Angeles, the largest of 88 cities in the County of Los Angeles and the most populous in the United States, took several measures to attempt to reduce residential water consumption. Three phases of water restrictions were implemented during the 2008–2010 period: voluntary restrictions (FY2008), mandatory restrictions (FY2009), and yet more stringent mandatory restrictions combined with a price increase and a decrease in overall household allocations (FY2010). Our research aims at quantifying the impact of these increasing restrictions on single-family residential water use across the City. Ten years of monthly individual billing data (2000–2010) were obtained from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the municipal utility for the City. Monthly single-family customer water use records at the Public Use Microdata Area level from 2000 to 2007 were used to develop and validate a linear regression model that integrated unemployment and climate information during a period without restrictions. Predictions from the model were then compared to actual consumption to assess the impact of water restrictions during the 2008–2010 period. We also contrasted voluntary water restrictions counseled by LADWP with mandatory water use restrictions. Results show that more stringent mandatory outdoor watering restrictions combined with pricing measures were most effective and resulted in a 23% decrease in City average single-family water use during summer of FY2010. Voluntary restrictions in FY2008 were less effective in reducing water use.

The effectiveness of water conservation measures on summer residential water use in Los Angeles, California

Warmer and drier conditions over the past decade in California, in addition to court-mandated restrictions on the Sacramento River Delta water supply, have generally reduced the amount of water resources available to Southern California. These constraints on water supply led water agencies to implement a range of water conservation and watering restrictions programs, mostly targeted at outdoor use. The City of Los Angeles, the largest of 88 cities in the County of Los Angeles and the most populous in the United States, took several measures to attempt to reduce residential water consumption. Three phases of water restrictions were implemented during the 2008–2010 period: voluntary restrictions (FY2008), mandatory restrictions (FY2009), and yet more stringent mandatory restrictions combined with a price increase and a decrease in overall household allocations (FY2010). Our research aims at quantifying the impact of these increasing restrictions on single-family residential water use across the City. Ten years of monthly individual billing data (2000–2010) were obtained from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the municipal utility for the City. Monthly single-family customer water use records at the Public Use Microdata Area level from 2000 to 2007 were used to develop and validate a linear regression model that integrated unemployment and climate information during a period without restrictions. Predictions from the model were then compared to actual consumption to assess the impact of water restrictions during the 2008–2010 period. We also contrasted voluntary water restrictions counseled by LADWP with mandatory water use restrictions. Results show that more stringent mandatory outdoor watering restrictions combined with pricing measures were most effective and resulted in a 23% decrease in City average single-family water use during summer of FY2010. Voluntary restrictions in FY2008 were less effective in reducing water use.

Estimation of residential outdoor water use in Los Angeles, California

The current study analyzes existing methods for estimating outdoor use and landscape irrigation in highly developed residential areas across Los Angeles. Outdoor use was estimated using three methods: two methods described by the Pacific Institute and a third approach that utilizes remotely sensed vegetation and water billing data. Monthly individual water use records were provided by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) for 2000–2010. This period includes voluntary and mandatory restrictions due to drought conditions across the state. Records were aggregated to the census tract level to protect customer privacy. The two Pacific Institute methods, which are based on water billing data, generally underestimate outdoor use due to assumptions that the lowest water consumption month represents indoor use, which is likely not the case in Los Angeles. The remote-sensing model developed between single-family water use and the Landsat normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) surplus performed well in greener areas of the city and indicates that landscape irrigation use represents 54% of total single-family water use. The model also predicts an average decrease in landscaping irrigation of 6% and by 35% during voluntary and mandatory restrictions, respectively. Voluntary conservation and mandatory waste restrictions were less effective for higher income groups in the city, while more stringent pricing and non-pricing mandatory restrictions in FY2010 had similar effects across income groups. Study results contribute to a better understanding of the partitioning of Los Angeles residential water use and can be utilized to evaluate pricing structures and target water conservation efforts.

Strategies to reduce durations of post-earthquake water service interruptions in Los Angeles

A discrete event simulation model is used to evaluate the effectiveness of key post-earthquake water supply restoration strategies that the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) plans to use following a major earthquake. The strategies are: (1) maximising the groundwater pumped into the system, (2) connecting raw water emergency storage reservoirs, (3) rationing water use, and (4) all three. For each of five realistic earthquake scenarios the restoration with and without implementation of the key restoration strategies are compared. The results suggest that opening the reservoirs and rationing are effective post-earthquake restoration strategies that would help to minimise the water outages.

Battling Nitrification With Blacklights

This article discusses a full‐scale tank retrofit by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) that included suspending a bank of fluorescent blacklights in the headspace of Mount Washington Tank 2 to prevent nitrification from occurring in the covered storage facility. The article explains the process by which nitrification was occurring after LADWP changed from chlorine to chloramines as its secondary disinfectant, and discusses the full‐scale pilot project along with near‐ultraviolet (UVA) radiation lighting design and validation.

Made in the: Shade

This article discusses an innovative approach to bromate treatment used by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), called “shade balls” which keep bromide and chlorine from reacting with sunlight. LADWP covered three of its open‐air posttreatment reservoirs, that were found to have elevated levels of bromate, with millions of 4 inch black, high‐density polyethylene vapor control balls. These shade balls prevented bromate formation by shading the reservoir water from sunlight.

Heat Waves in Southern California: Are They Becoming More Frequent and Longer Lasting?

Los Angeles is experiencing more heat waves and also more extreme heat days. These numbers have increased by 3.09°F (1.72°C) per century and 22.8 per century occurrences, respectively. Both have more than tripled over the past 100 years as a consequence of the steady warming of Los Angeles. Our research explores the daily maximum and minimum temperatures from 1906 to 2006 recorded by the Department of Water and Power (DWP) downtown station and Pierce College, a suburban valley location. The average annual maximum temperature in Los Angeles has warmed by 5.0°F (2.8°C), while the average annual minimum temperature has warmed by 4.2°F (2.3°C). The greatest rate of change was during the summer months for both maximum and minimum temperature, with late fall and early winter having the least rates of change. There was also an increase in heat wave duration. Heat waves lasting longer than six days occurred regularly after the 1970s but were nonexistent from the start of 1906 until 1956, when the first six-day heat wave was recorded. While heat days have increased dramatically in the past century, cold days, where minimum temperature is below 45°F (7.2°C), show a slight decreasing trend.

Optimizing scheduling of post‐earthquake electric power restoration tasks

AbstractThis paper presents a stochastic integer program developed to determine how to schedule inspection, damage assessment, and repair tasks so as to optimize the post‐earthquake restoration of the electric power system. The objective of the optimization is to minimize the average time each customer is without power, and a genetic algorithm is used to solve it. The effectiveness of the schedules recommended by the optimization are evaluated by running a detailed discrete event simulation model of the restoration process with both the optimization‐generated schedules and the power company's original schedules, and comparing the resulting restorations according to three measures—average time each customer is without power, time required to restore 90 of customers, and time required to restore 98 of customers. The optimization and simulation models both consider all the earthquakes that could affect the power system and represent the uncertainty surrounding expected restoration times. he models were developed through an application to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) electric power system, but the general approach is extendable to other electric power systems, other lifelines, and other hazards. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Life-cycle Characteristics of Customer-sited Small-scale Residential Photovoltaic Systems

In 1998, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power(LADWP) implemented a spearhead research program for the purpose ofdetermining the real world, in-situ, life-cycle performance of small scalephotovoltaic (PV) systems. These systems were to be owned and oper-ated by the municipal utility, installed on residential structures, andwould introduce the use of photovoltaics into the LADWP’s electricgeneration portfolio.The early results obtained from the program provided the neces-sary background electrical performance and installation feasibility expe-rience that was necessary to develop the utility’s larger $150 million, 10-year, solar power customer incentive “buydown program,” initially of-fered to its residential and commercial customers beginning in Septem-ber 2000. The buydown program continues to be offered to LADWPcustomers through June 30, 2011.In the 1998 program, the utility provided 2.5 kilowatt roof-mountedPV systems and installation labor, and requested program volunteersfrom its residential customer base. The volunteer sites provided roofspace for the photovoltaic modules and wall mounting space for thebalance of system and dedicated meter. The systems were connecteddirectly to the local distribution circuit, and provided solar generatedelectricity directly to the municipal grid. From a number of respondents,12 sites were qualified for installation of the systems.In 2004, the utility formally began its phase out of the researchprogram by either removing those systems from service or transitioningthem to private customer ownership.

Partnering Makes the Owens Lake Project Feasible

Partnering Makes the Owens Lake Project FeasibleThe Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) is currently engaged in remediation of the nation's largest dust (PM10) emissions source: Owens Dry Lakebed. In July 1998, LADWP signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) with the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District (District) to implement dust control measures at the lakebed. Recognizing the challenging aspects of the Owens Lake...Author(s)M. MadisonR. ColesR. HarasickT. SchadeJ. NelsonG. HilleSourceProceedings of the Water Environment FederationSubjectSession 57 - International and Local Issues: Creative FinancingDocument typeConference PaperPublisherWater Environment FederationPrint publication date Jan, 2002ISSN1938-6478SICI1938-6478(20020101)2002:12L.525;1-DOI10.2175/193864702784164019Volume / Issue2002 / 12Content sourceWEFTECFirst / last page(s)525 - 525Copyright2002Word count119

A "Kinder, Gentler" Los Angeles? The City and Inyo-Mono Water, 1970-1991

first seven decades of the twentieth century witnessed an irrepressible assault upon the water resources of California's Inyo-Mono region by the City of Los Angeles, a burgeoning metropolis whose thirst was virtually insatiable. Despite the bad reputation the City had earned following its entry into Owens Valley shortly after 1900, the City's Department of Water and Power (DWP) continued to anger Valley residents by increasing its water withdrawal to meet the demands of the growing city. By 1970, when the City opened a second barrel on the Owens Valley aqueduct, its control of water rights in the region was unchallenged and it moved to enlarge its take of groundwater from Inyo and to divert additional stream water from Mono Basin.1

The Postmortem Fate of Pat Gregory: A Disinterred Native American

In late June 1990, the Mono County Sheriffs Department in Bridgeport, CA contacted the Physical Anthropology Human Identification Laboratory (PAHIL) at California State University, Chico to seek assistance in the identification of a recently discovered skull. To assist with possible identification, the cranium received a classic physical anthropological/morphological analysis to suggest the decedent's sex, age at death, ancestral affiliation, and uniqueness. It was concluded the cranium was that of an older male, and someone with mixed ancestry, probably Native American/White. Suggested uniquenesses were an eroded and greasy texture, with adhering white sand, evidence of healed antemortem nasal fractures, and a bifid left occipital condyle. The cranium was confiscated from a man suspected of vandalizing a Native American cemetery just south of the community of Lee Vining. The cemetery was established in the mid-1800's by local Native American tribes. Although ownership of the land was disputed by the US Forest Service (the Inyo National Forest), and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), county authorities claimed that because the incident involved the desecration of a cemetery and human remains, it was a legal issue, and therefore, the Sheriff's Department had jurisdiction over the case if not the land. The suspect pled guilty to the possession of Native American remains but claimed not to have desecrated a grave. Over the next year and a half, members of the Native American community representing various tribes sought the return of the cranium, while also seeking assurance that it belonged to the vandalized grave. While county, US Forest Service, and LADWP officials continued to argue over whom had jurisdiction of the remains the superior court judge ordered the county to pay for any analysis necessary to determine if the cranium belonged to the decedent in question. This report addresses the conclusions of that analysis and the disposition of the case. Furthermore, the report addresses the forensic value to Native Americans of the continued study of a wide variety of human skeletal remains.

Shared residuals processing will benefit adjacent agencies

Cooperative efforts by neighboring facilities will reduce operating costs for both agencies.The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California (MWDSC) conducted a detailed feasibility study on alternative residuals processing and disposal methods for its Joseph Jensen Filtration Plant. Alternatives to the current practice of sewer disposal were evaluated through literature research, vendor testing, on‐site pilot testing, and joint investigations with outside agencies. As a result of this study, MWDSC and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), one of MWDSC's 27 member agencies, will enter into an agreement to jointly process residuals from two adjacent water treatment plants operated by the respective agencies. The residuals from the MWDSC plant will be pumped to existing evaporation ponds at the LADWP plant for processing and disposal, and avoided costs will be shared between the two agencies. In addition, the agencies have agreed to exchange standard water treatment chemicals during emergencies.