Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid Initiative

The Goleta Load Pocket Community Microgrid Initiative provides a unique opportunity to bring resilience to the region with indefinite renewables-driven energy for critical emergency response and recovery facilities — while building back right in areas damaged by recent wildfires and debris flows. This deployment of clean local energy will showcase the grid of the future and will provide economic, environmental, and resilience benefits to the community.

In December 2017, the month-long Thomas Fire burned over 300,000 acres and devastated parts of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, within the Goleta Load Pocket. On January 9, 2018, in just five minutes, half an inch of rain fell over the destabilized hillsides, resulting in a debris flow of boulders, trees, and over 15 feet of mud in some locations — traveling downhill at 20 miles per hour.

Both the fire and the subsequent debris flow demonstrate the need for energy resilience in this disaster-prone region. The Montecito Community Microgrid Initiative will provide that much-needed resilience and a model for how to build back right.

• Developing local DER is the only strategy that will deliver energy reliability and resilience to the area.
• SCE’s Request for Offers (RFO) process is flawed and cannot deliver DER in the quantities needed.
• A superior procurement method is the Clean Coalition’s cost-effective, market-responsive Feed-In Tariff (FIT), which accelerates DER development.
• Development of local DER creates jobs and invigorates the economy, while lowering the community’s carbon footprint, in line with local and state renewable energy goals.
• Local DER can be developed on south-facing hillsides, public facilities, and commercial-industrial  sites that currently use around 70% of all locally consumed energy.
• Both the FIT model and savings from demand charge reductions (up to 50% for commercial properties) make commercial-scale DER highly cost-effective.