Widespread adoption of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) and renewable energy (RE) can help to jointly decarbonize the transportation and electricity sectors. Previous studies indicate strategies to manage PEV charging facilitate integration of RE into electricity grids, but the value of such strategies at scale is unclear because electricity markets and PEV charging have been inadequately represented together. This analysis focuses on the state of California in 2025, and improves on prior work by linking high-resolution mobility and grid dispatch models to quantify the value of managed charging under a 50% RE grid and PEV adoption scenarios up to California's 5 million vehicle target. Even after accounting for practical charging and grid constraints, 0.95 to 5 million “smart” charging PEVs avoid $120 to $690 million in California grid operating costs annually (up to 10% of total costs) and reduce RE curtailment up to 40% relative to unmanaged PEVs. Overnight time-of-use (TOU) charging provides similar cost savings but increases curtailment. Both of these managed strategies defer system infrastructure expansion at the 5 million PEV deployment. The results suggest residential smart charging complemented by TOU tariffs with added daytime periods are policies with most potential to advance California's dual PEV and RE goals.

Electricity and water systems are inextricably linked through water demands for energy generation, and through energy demands for using, moving, and treating water and wastewater. Climate change may stress these interdependencies, together referred to as the energy-water nexus, by reducing water availability for hydropower generation and by increasing irrigation and electricity demand for groundwater pumping, among other feedbacks. Further, many climate adaptation measures to augment water supplies - such as water recycling and desalination - are energy-intensive. However, water and electricity system climate vulnerabilities and adaptations are often studied in isolation, without considering how multiple interactive risks may compound. This paper reviews the fragmented literature and develops a generalized framework for understanding these implications of climate change on the energy-water nexus. We apply this framework in a case study to quantify end-century direct climate impacts on California's water and electricity resources and estimate the magnitude of the indirect cross-sectoral feedback of electricity demand from various water adaptation strategies. Our results show that increased space cooling demand and decreased hydropower generation are the most significant direct climate change impacts on California's electricity sector by end-century. In California's water sector, climate change impacts directly on surface water availability exceed demand changes, but have considerable uncertainty, both in direction and magnitude. Additionally, we find that the energy demands of water sector climate adaptations could significantly affect California's future electricity system needs. If the worst-case water shortage occurs under climate change, water-conserving adaptation measures can provide large energy savings co-benefits, but other energy-intensive water adaptations may double the direct impacts of climate change on the state's electricity resource requirement. These results highlight the value of coordinated adaptation planning between the energy and water sectors to achieve mutually beneficial solutions for climate resilience.