Strategies for Achieving Energy Assurance

Direct Relief’s Santa Barbara-based headquarters includes a solar and battery microgrid to provide critical services even during a prolonged power outage. Photo credit: Donnie Hedden, Direct Relief

Overview

The County is working towards energy assurance through coordinated state and local action and community preparedness. These energy assurance strategies are organized in three categories.

Strategy Categories

Leading by Example

How the County is modeling best practices for energy assurance for County facilities through energy efficiency and demand response, solar energy, and battery storage.

Government and Utility Coordination

How the County is working with state and local agencies, utilities, and community choice aggregators to make our electricity grid more reliable and resilient.

Community Empowerment

How the County is supporting residents and organizations to prepare for power outages, make their buildings more resilient, and reduce strain on the grid. 

Some of the strategies are a continuation of existing County and community efforts. Others are new approaches. Where possible, the strategies complement or coordinate with other County plans as shown below.

Strategies

Leading by Example (LBE)

The County is seeking to align with state and utility efforts to practice demand reduction—using less energy when the grid is overloaded—and load shifting—moving energy use to a time period when there is more available electricity supply—while adding new renewable energy supply at its own County facilities and properties. Most activities are implemented by the General Services Department, Public Works Department, and Parks Division with support from the Sustainability Division, Office of Emergency Management, and others.

The County has already taken steps to increase the energy resilience of its facilities by reducing overall energy use through energy efficiency investments and adding solar energy and battery energy storage, as aligned with the 2014 Zero Net Energy (ZNE) Facilities Resolution. The resolution requires 50% of all new construction and major renovations of County-owned facilities be Zero Net Energy—meaning they produce as much clean energy as they consume—after 2020 and 100% after 2025. Completed and in development solar energy and energy storage projects are detailed below.

County Facility Solar and Storage Projects

The following solar energy projects provide clean, onsite renewable energy to power County facilities. The battery energy storage projects are designed to store four hours of energy.

The County will continue to pursue energy assurance for County-owned facilities, as shown in the Leading by Example strategies below. 

Government and Utility Coordination (GUC)

The State of California is trying to balance electricity supply and demand on the statewide grid as it advances towards a carbon-free electricity system by 2045 and also phases out some natural gas end-uses. It does this through various laws, regulations, utility directives, and incentive and grant programs.

The County supports local implementation of these state decarbonization efforts, for example, as a member of Central Coast Community Energy (3CE), which is on a path to sourcing 100% clean and renewable energy by 2030 — 15 years ahead of the state goal. Other examples include the Planning & Development Department integrating state decarbonization requirements into local code and permitting requirements and the Sustainability Division complementing state electrification incentives with additional incentives offered through the Tri-County Regional Energy Network (3C-REN). The County Executive Office is also engaged in legislative and intergovernmental affairs. 

To support existing electrification and renewable energy initiatives, the County is committed to coordinating with state and local agencies, utilities, and community choice aggregators to ensure a more reliable, resilient grid. These efforts fall into three main categories: demand reduction, load shifting, and increasing renewable energy supply.

Encouraging Demand Reduction

Using less energy, especially during peak periods of energy usage

This looks like programs and regulations that help people and organizations make our buildings more energy efficient and encourage installing onsite solar energy, meaning buildings need less electricity from the grid. 

Encouraging Load Shifting

Shifting when energy is used from heavier to lighter periods of energy usage

This looks like charging different rates for electricity depending on the time of day or year, text messages asking people to delay clothes and dishwashing during emergency power events, and offering incentives to install batteries and bill credits for charging and discharging those batteries to level out electricity supply and demand on the grid.

Increasing Supply of Renewable Energy Resources

Building more power plants of all sizes—from large wind farms to rooftop solar panels

This looks like the state Renewables Portfolio Standard that requires electricity providers to get a minimum percentage of their electricity from renewable energy sources and local government and utility efforts to streamline permitting and interconnection processes. 

The government and utility coordination strategies that the County will pursue to increase energy assurance are identified below.

Community Empowerment (CE)

The County continues to support and encourage local residents, businesses, and organizations to reduce energy demand, shift energy loads, and increase renewable energy supply with local programs and initiatives. These local activities are primarily delivered through the County’s Sustainability Division, which staffs the Santa Barbara County Regional Climate Collaborative and jointly administers the Tri-County Regional Energy Network (3C-REN). The County works closely with other County departments and government and community partners to provide resources to the community to increase energy assurance, for example, through the following recent initiatives:

  • Through the Santa Barbara County Climate Collaborative, County staff and the Community Environmental Council implemented a pilot program (2022-2023) to identify three sites as resilience hubs to support county residents. The pilot supported the sites to identify services and facility upgrades to help provide safe local gathering places and access to critical services during extreme weather events and other emergency situations. These sites continue to seek funding to implement the upgrades and services identified in this process.

  • The Santa Barbara County Climate Collaborative also includes a Clean Energy Assurance Subcommittee. This group welcomes municipal energy managers, sustainability professionals, utility employees, and other regional energy focused groups and individuals to share best practices, collaborate on funding opportunities, plan events, and conduct other activities to advance regional clean energy development and energy assurance projects.

  • The Energy Assurance Services program (2021-2023) provided free energy audits for facilities that provide, or plan to provide, critical services to the community. These audits identified energy efficiency, solar energy, electrification, and battery storage upgrades for 11 facilities. 3C-REN is taking over implementation of the program for the region in 2024.

  • Through 3C-REN, County staff design and implement energy efficiency programs that help the community decrease energy demand, which reduces strain on our local electricity grid. 3C-REN provides incentives and technical assistance to help contractors and property owners upgrade to more efficient equipment and free training for local energy professionals on energy efficiency and related topics.

The County will continue to pursue the community-focused energy assurance strategies identified below. To learn more about how you can support reaching these goals, please visit www.ClimateResilientSBC.org.

Energy & Climate Change

Learn about how climate change is affecting our energy system.

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Plan Goals

Review the County’s goals for achieving energy assurance.

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Map

See the growth of renewable energy and energy storage projects countywide.

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