by Katie Davis, Sierra Club Los Padres Chapter Chair
Swell Addition
What sweet timing that my new home battery arrived for install on Earth Day. The battery will pay for itself by storing excess energy from our solar panels during the day for use in the evening when electric rates are more expensive. What’s more, we have back up power even if the power goes out, such as during a power safety shut off. State rebates and a special incentive for our area bring down the cost.
That extra incentive is because Swell’s network of home batteries is part of a larger battery storage effort in our region helping us avoid building another polluting power plant in Oxnard. Defeating the proposed Puente power plant and getting all these clean energy battery storage projects instead is a major win for renewable energy in our region. You can get a home solar and storage estimate at https://www.swellenergy.com/sierraclub
Battery Bonanza
Apart from Swell, most of the battery storage going up in our region are large commercial installations. In fact, Strata Solar’s 100-megawatt battery storage project slated near Oxnard will be one of the largest in the nation. It will store enough energy to power 80,000 homes and businesses for four hours.
There have also recently been two 10-megawatt battery projects near Carpinteria approved by the SB County Planning Commission and another one recently approved by the Camarillo Planning Commission. All are part of this larger storage effort alternative to a new gas plant that will compensate for the closure of the Mandalay power plant and the eventual closure of another Oxnard plant, the Ormond Generating Station.
The projects use labor agreements with the Tri-Counties Building and Construction Trades Council to provide local union jobs.
Farming Wind
The 98-megawatt Strauss Wind Project in the hills south of Lompoc received its final permits in early May and construction has begun. Renewable energy, which has zero fuel cost, has been increasingly beating out fossil fuels in grids across the world.
This particular wind project will double the county’s generation of renewable electricity, generating enough clean electricity for 43,000 homes, avoiding approximately 40,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of 8,000 cars. It will provide an estimated $40 million in tax revenue over the project’s 30-year life and provide 150 temporary construction jobs during this time of high unemployment and need.
Oil Glut
More puzzling is the continued push for oil expansion permits in SB County despite a global oil glut and record low oil prices that make new oil production uneconomic in the extreme. Lately oil tankers have been idling off California with excess supply, holding some 20 million barrels of oil along the west coast, or nearly enough to satisfy a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption.
Still, the County is having to process oil project applications. Exxon seeks to restart its oil platforms on the Gaviota coast that have been shut down since the 2015 oil spill. Its application to truck the oil is expected to come up for a decision as soon as July, and this fall the county is expected to issue a draft environmental review of a new oil pipeline proposed by Plains, the same company responsible for causing the spill.
In addition, while two of the three Cat Canyon oil projects near Santa Maria has been withdrawn, the last one is still active seeking to magnify onshore oil production using extreme cyclic steam and acidizing processes.