Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid (GLPCM)

The Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid (GLPCM) will showcase the power system of the future. The Goleta Load Pocket, a disaster-prone, transmission-vulnerable 70-mile stretch of Southern California coastline, provides the perfect opportunity for a comprehensive Community Microgrid that will bring the area an unparalleled trifecta of economic, environmental, and resilience benefits. A Community Microgrid can island from the larger grid during a power outage — whether it’s caused by a natural disaster, a PSPS, or any other event — providing indefinite renewables-driven backup power for critical community facilities such as fire stations and emergency shelters. During regular grid operations, the GLPCM will continue providing the benefits of clean local energy to the community. 

About the Goleta Load Pocket

The Goleta Load Pocket (GLP) spans 70 miles of Southern California coastline, from Point Conception to Lake Casitas, encompassing the cities of Goleta, Santa Barbara (including Montecito), and Carpinteria.

The GLP lies at the end of the grid and is completely grid-dependent, generating very little of its own power. The area gets most of its power from just one 
set of transmission lines that are hung on the same transmission towers and routed through 40 miles of mountainous terrain — making the GLP highly transmission-vulnerable.

Southern California Edison (SCE) has identified these transmission lines as being at risk for catastrophic failure from fire, earthquake, or heavy rains, which would cause a crippling, extended blackout of weeks or even months.

To achieve indefinite renewables-driven backup power that provides 100% protection to the GLP against a complete transmission outage (“N-2 event”), 200 megawatts (MW) of solar and 400 megawatt-hours (MWh) of energy storage needs to be sited within the GLP. This is highly achievable, representing only:

• About 5 times the amount of the solar currently deployed in the area
• About 7% of the area’s technical solar siting potential on built environments such as rooftops, parking lots, and parking structures

The GLP Community Microgrid (GLPCM)

The GLPCM provides a unique opportunity to bring a disaster-prone region indefinite renewables-driven backup power — providing the area an unparalleled trifecta of economic, environmental, and resilience benefits. Significant efforts are being made to align appropriate stakeholders, including property owners, policymakers, community leaders, solutions providers, and the monopoly electric utility, Southern California Edison (SCE), toward this goal.

Download a 2-page overview of the Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid (PDF)

Direct Relief case study

An example of how a Feed-In Tariff (FIT) will help create more clean local energy projects in the GLP is the Direct Relief Microgrid.

Direct Relief, one of the largest disaster recovery and supply nonprofits in the world, needed a microgrid to ensure that their Goleta headquarters never loses electricity. Net energy metering (NEM) and other behind-the-meter constraints limited Direct Relief to 320 kilowatts of solar, even though its built environments can support almost four times that amount of solar. While NEM works well for residential solar installations, this example illustrates that it is not an effective mechanism for most commercial-scale sites, whose electric load is often smaller than their generating capacity.

A Solar Siting Survey produced by the Clean Coalition shows that the Direct Relief site has 1,133 kilowatts (kW) of total solar siting potential. This breaks down to 320 kW of existing solar, 427 kW of additional rooftop solar, and 386 kW of solar on the site’s parking lot.

A FIT would allow Direct Relief to make better use of this space by deploying more solar+storage, so the facility could keep more of its load online for longer during an outage, while also adding to the overall needed local energy generation that would provide resilience to the entire GLP.

In the fall of 2019, Direct Relief made its headquarters available to anyone who lost power during a PSPS, allowing residents to charge their phones, computers, portable batteries, and other devices. The nonprofit would be able to serve the community even better with more solar+storage.

Overcoming power outage risks

Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS), Southern California Edison’s last-resort public safety measure to mitigate wildfire risk, are becoming more common, leaving more critical community facilities without power within the GLP. The on-site diesel generators these facilities rely on now are noisy and dirty — and they generally have only enough fuel on hand to power a site for two days.

Living up to the promise of 100% renewables

California has resolved to reach 100% clean electricity by 2045. Goleta has committed to 100% renewable electricity for all municipal facilities and community-wide electricity supply by 2030.

It’s time to live up to this promise, and to realize our clean energy future.