As more Santa Barbara County agencies join Monterey Bay’s community choice energy program, it plans to rename itself the Central Coast Community Energy program, said Goleta Councilman Kyle Richards, a new member of the policy board. 

The city of Goleta voted in August to join the community choice energy program and expects to make the switch in early 2021. 

Santa Barbara County, Carpinteria, Solvang, and Santa Maria have decided to join the Monterey Bay program, which also has members in Santa Cruz, San Benito, Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties. Santa Barbara wants to create its own.

Community choice energy programs give agencies more control over their energy sources, such as renewable sources, but use existing providers — PG&E and Southern California Edison in this county — to deliver power to customers. 

Richards said there are several reasons driving the switch for Goleta, including the needs for cleaner energy and more local energy sources.

“We see what’s happening around the world — climate change is here, we’re experiencing it now, whether it’s fires in Australia or the local debris flows and fires,” Richards said.

“This is us stepping up to the plate, taking responsibility. It’s a win win.” 

He also said the change could allow Goleta to use more local energy sources, which could make the area less susceptible to public safety power shutoffs and other outages. 

“The more energy being generated locally here, the less we need to transport across large distances… we can be more self sustaining,” he said. 

Goleta has two options, a carbon-free energy plan or a renewable energy plan, he said, and the City Council will start researching those options later this year. 

The carbon-free plan relies heavily on hydroelectric power that is generated mostly in Northern California and the Northwest, while the other plan is 100-percent supplied by renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. 

First District Supervisor Das Williams said Santa Barbara County’s transition to the community choice power program would take about a year, similar to Goleta’s timeline. 

“Switching to a provider that is providing a higher amount of renewable energy is one of the most substantive things that we can do to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” Williams said. 

“We really feel strongly about creating some local, renewable generation … We don’t have any local generation at this point,” he said.

Santa Barbara County initially wanted to develop its own community choice energy program, but decided to join an existing one to save money. 

Goleta does not know what the impact will be on customer rates, and neither does the county. 

​“Right now it’s impossible for sure to tell what (local rates) will be,” Richards said. He said rates in San Luis Obispo, which is a member of Monterey Bay Community Power, are the same or below PG&E’s rates. 

When the agencies do switch over, customers have the option to opt out of the community choice energy programs. 

— Noozhawk contributing writer Evelyn Spence can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.