SAN DIEGO – Businesses in north San Diego County have a new opportunity to save on their energy costs.
Clean Energy Alliance announced a partnership this month with the San Diego-based solar energy technology company Luminia to launch a program to install solar panel and battery storage systems at commercial, industrial, municipal and school district properties that lower long-term energy costs and provide a back-up power source in the event of a problem with the region’s electrical grid.
The Solar Plus Business program is an extension of CEA’s Solar Plus program, which has primarily served residential buildings across the electricity providing nonprofit’s service area, which includes Carlsbad, Del Mar, Escondido, Solana Beach, San Marcos, Oceanside and Vista.
“We have done that for about two years now,” CEA Key Accounts/Program Manager Rob Howard said of the Solar Plus residential program. “And through that, we had constant requests about what we were going to do for businesses.”
Under the partnership, Luminia installs, owns and maintains solar energy and storage systems onsite at businesses, commercial properties and other non-residential facilities enrolled in the Solar Plus Business program.
CEA then purchases power and delivers it to customers at a rate appearing directly on their San Diego Gas & Electric bill. As a result, commercial facilities can participate in the program with no upfront expenses for property owners and leverage their battery storage at times of peak energy demand, reducing their overall energy costs.
Luminia co-founder and CEO David Field said the lack of solar power arrays in north San Diego County was particularly apparent to him after noticing multiple acres of unused space on the rooftops of commercial buildings while on a recent flight into Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport.
“Part of the objective here, we call it the ‘missing middle,’ it sits between the residential and utility scale, it’s hard to finance, it’s oftentimes tenant-occupied and tenants may have a short-term lease, their interests are not necessarily aligned with that of a landlord,” Field said.
“What we did together in collaboration is develop a program that’s designed to really maximize the value of on-site generation and battery storage for those constituents,” he added.
Community Choice Energy
Clean Energy Alliance is part of a category of nonprofit joint-powers authorities known as community choice aggregators, which allow local governments to purchase and sell electricity on behalf of their residents and local businesses, providing a non-corporate utility option and more control over electricity rates.
The cities of Carlsbad, Del Mar and Solana Beach first established Clean Energy Alliance in 2019 and began providing energy services in 2021, while the cities of Escondido and San Marcos joined in 2021 and the cities of Oceanside and Vista joined in 2022.
In addition to reduced energy costs and cost-free solar and battery storage systems, the partnership between CEA and Luminia also benefits local labor, according to Field, as Luminia aims to identify and onboard experienced and skilled solar installers to assist in projects under the Solar Plus Business program.
“Community choice energy is, by its definition and since its inception, been all about local choice and local control and local benefit,” CEA CEO Greg Wade said. “And from that perspective, having local labor and local partners like Luminia, it just really drive on the point that we’re trying to keep not only our energy generation services local, but our partnerships local.”
The Solar Plus Business program is open to commercial properties located in CEA’s member cities that are aligned with baseline energy use and site criteria, according to the nonprofit. CEA and Luminia anticipate the program to deploy as much as 160 megawatts of solar power and 640 MW-hours of battery storage capacity.
Clean Energy Alliance is currently enrolling businesses and non-residential facilities into the Solar Plus Business program and encourages property owners to contact the nonprofit to determine if they qualify.
“We are really open to education, we want to help you understand how this program can be beneficial to you, we want you to know how it’s beneficial to the local community,” Howard said. “You may not know if your particular business or your particular site would fit or be perfect for the program, but that’s our job to help educate you, and hopefully in that conversation, they’ll learn more about what we’re doing here at CEA.”
Luminia
FOUNDED: 2019
CEO: David Field
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: Solar energy technology and storage
EMPLOYEES: About 15
WEBSITE: luminia.io
CONTACT: (858) 866-8777
NOTABLE: Luminia has supported the installation of more than $4 billion in renewable energy infrastructure across the country.
Clean Energy Alliance
FOUNDED: 2019
CEO: Greg Wade
HEADQUARTERS: Carlsbad
BUSINESS: Community choice energy aggrigator
EMPLOYEES: 11
WEBSITE: thecleanenergyalliance.org
CONTACT: [email protected]
NOTABLE: CEA first began providing energy services in Carlsbad, Del Mar and Solana Beach in May 2021.
Eli is an award-winning reporter primarily covering the tech and life sciences industries. He previously worked as the San Diego City Hall reporter for the regional wire City News Service. He has also covered public health, transportation and state and local politics in the San Francisco Bay Area for Local News Matters, the nonprofit arm of the regional wire Bay City News Service, where he also oversaw the development and daily content management of the outlet’s public health and COVID-19 news and resource webpage. He is also a contributing writer covering Minor League Baseball for the analysis and commentary website Baseball Prospectus. Eli is a graduate of San Francisco State University and a native of Northern California.
