Assembly Bill 117 was passed in 2002 to establish Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) also known as Community Choice Energy (CCE), a new way for California communities to provide local residents and businesses with a choice of electric providers and sources of electricity. CCAs replace an Investor-Owned Utility’s electric generation services with a local, publicly controlled electric generation service. In the SVCE service area, SVCE is responsible for purchasing electricity, which PG&E then distributes to homes and businesses. PG&E continues to provide billing service, account starts and stops, resolves outages, performs power line maintenance and remains responsible for all gas services. For more information, please visit: https://www.svcleanenergy.org/the-agency/.

SVCE tentatively plans to release a call for applications for Innovation Onramp on a semi-annual basis, with Stage 0 proposals accepted in the spring and Stages 1 and 2 in the fall. This schedule may be subject to change depending on a variety of factors, including staff resource constraints.

Anyone can apply to the Innovation Onramp program. Applicants may apply as a single entity, or a team with multiple partners may submit an application, with one party designated as the lead for purposes of contracting.

Yes, you are welcome to reapply. You are encouraged to incorporate any feedback and insight that you may have received related to your previous application.

Please see the Innovation Onramp informational webinar for more information on the program and SVCE’s priorities. You may also reach out to innovation@svcleanenergy.org to ask questions and to solicit preliminary feedback on proposal concepts.

Previous application cycles of Innovation Onramp have had themes, including innovative mobility and resiliency solutions. While the Spring 2021 application round has a focus area of building decarbonization, SVCE will consider all submissions.

SVCE may identify priority areas during certain application rounds. The Spring 2020 application round focused on resiliency solutions. Nevertheless, all project submissions were welcomed and considered by SVCE.

SVCE will not fund pilot projects that are duplicative of existing or planned SVCE programs, or that are not sufficiently well-aligned with SVCE’s core functions and role. For example, a pilot project aimed at showcasing all-electric homes would be unlikely to be selected for an Innovation Onramp grant, as this would be duplicative of SVCE’s All Electric Showcase Award. Or, a pilot project that focuses on innovative ways to operate a high-DER penetration distribution system would also be unlikely to be funded, unless the distribution utility (PG&E) is a member of the application team.

Additionally, SVCE intends to amplify the impact of Innovation Onramp program by openly sharing results and lessons learned. As such, SVCE will not fund projects where the results cannot be widely disseminated.

SVCE takes a broad view of innovation. While some pilot projects may have a technology focus, others may employ innovative stakeholder engagement and outreach strategies, or innovative solutions to policy design and urban planning, for example. To improve your application’s chances of success, simply identify the problem you wish to address, how current solutions fall short, and how your project brings an innovative solution to the table. SVCE is also interested in deploying innovative solutions that have been piloted in other regions or contexts, to help facilitate achieving scale.

Innovation Onramp offers grant funding at three levels: $5,000 – $20,000 for Stage 0 seed round proposals, $10,000 – $75,000 for Stage 1 proof of concept projects, and $50,000 – $100,000 for Stage 2 demonstration projects. SVCE may also consider awarding grant funding above $100,000 threshold under special circumstances. Awarding of one level of grant funding does not guarantee the subsequent stage funding.

Innovation Onramp grant funds may be used for direct costs related to the pilot project. Examples of eligible costs include staff labor hours directly related to the pilot project, hardware equipment costs for technology demonstration projects, or travel expenses specifically related to project activities and deliverables.

Innovation Onramp grant funds may not be used for the following types of costs:

• Shared, indirect expenses such as administrative costs for offices or business operations
• Legal or other fees related to IP development, applications for patents, etc.
• Lobbying or contribution to political campaigns

Stage 1 and 2 pilot projects receiving Innovation Onramp grant funding should be completed in no more than 18 months from the time of contract execution. Stage 0 pilot projects should be completed no more than 12 months from the time of contract execution. We expect Stage 0 projects to take place over shorter timeframes compared to Stages 1 and 2, but we will consider different proposed timelines given the considerations for the pilot.