City of Houston – Henna Trewn – 2019

Goals 

The City of Houston, known as the “Energy Capital of the World,” enlisted EDF Climate Corps Henna Trewn to help analyze and prioritize electric vehicle initiatives for the City’s first Electric Vehicle Roadmap as part of the City’s creation of Evolve Houston, a stakeholder coalition of sustainability-minded leaders working to accelerate electric vehicle transportation.

Solutions

To help research initiatives for the Electric Vehicle Roadmap, Trewn worked with City fleet managers to understand the procurement process to create an ownership and emissions model to compare electric and diesel options. The model identified cost-effective bus electrification projects downtown and at the Houston Airport. Henna drafted and submitted a Volkswagen settlement grant to deploy up to 12 electric buses at the airport.

Trewn also evaluated electric vehicle initiatives for the City of Houston and EVolve Houston to prioritize projects based on a benchmarking analysis of goals, strategies, and activities in other jurisdictions. Based on Houston’s unique challenges and opportunities, she proposed an Electric Vehicle Roadmap, which gives the City a comprehensive strategy to implement charging-enabling policies, and dealership and fleet education and community engagement.

Potential Impact

With Trewn’s support, the City of Houston submitted its first Volkswagen settlement grant application to procure a downtown electric shuttle for employees and is working with United Airlines to deploy electric buses at the Houston Airport. If implemented, the proposed projects could save the City $1.5 million over the project lifetime — a value that can rise to over $8 million if state and federal grant opportunities are leveraged. Annually, the City could reduce diesel fuel use by over 150,000 gallons, avoiding nearly 900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and over 10 metric tons of nitrogen oxide emissions.