The U.S. Navy and Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will expand their use of plug-in electric vehicles and hybrids with new initiatives announced at the Drive the Dream 2015 event earlier this month.

Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Plug-In Electric Vehicle Collaborative highlighted the announcements at the Oct. 15 as a way to accelerate the roll-out of vehicle technology that helps the state meet its zero-emission mandate. California has set a goal of creating a charging network that can support 1 million electric vehicles by 2020.

The U.S. Department of Navy is in the process of leasing at least 450 electric vehicles that will replace gasoline-powered vehicles at Navy and Marine Corps bases across California.

Also, the LADWP will purchase and lease 157 plug-in vehicles, including 117 Chevrolet Volt hybrids and 40 Nissan LEAF cars.

"In addition to the regional environmental benefits and the opportunity for customers (and LADWP) to save money compared to gasoline, electric transportation has benefits for our utility," said Marvin Moon, LADWP's director of power engineering. "EV charging permits us to use our power assets better by adding load when there is capacity on the system.

The agency will also install EV chargers to support the vehicles. The chargers will also be available to employees. The LADWP will also install 104 public chargers on city property at a cost of $5.5 million. To date, the agency has installed more than 300 Level 2 chargers on city property.

In a third announcement, Vision Fleet announced it has set a goal to deploy 2,000 plug-in EVs with government, corporate, and other fleets by the end of 2016. Vision Fleet hopes to work with at least 10 corporate partners in the state to "identify and address cost-effective PEV opportunities," according to a release.