The Goleta Water District took another step toward its Net Zero goals when it installed new battery storage units at the Corona Del Mar water treatment plant up Glen Annie Road. These not only help produce drinking water with fewer greenhouse gases, but could contribute to saving more than 25 percent in electricity costs. These savings would be passed to ratepayers, said David Matson, general manager of the Goleta Water District.

As Matson spoke, a hawk wheeled overhead, soaring over the rolling canyons and foothills that flank Corona Del Mar and the electrical transmission towers that marched down the ridges. Roughly two dozen employees, board members, and elected officials gathered at a ribbon-cutting ceremony on November 7 that also celebrated Goleta Water District’s 80th anniversary. 

The new battery array cost a bit less than $1 million, funded by a Public Utilities Commission grant, and allows raw water to be treated to drinking water standards even during power shutoffs and emergencies. It joins other carbon-reducing projects of the Water district, such as the solar panels at six of the district’s eight reservoir.

Hydropower is in the district’s portfolio, too. Water, flowing largely by gravity, turns an electricity-generating turbine at the Garrett Van Horne Reservoir. The hydro-plant provides both power and revenue, and, Matson said, the district is considering adding a turbine at Corona del Mar treatment plant.

Matson noted that an added benefit of replacing their aging vehicles with electric ones enabled everyone working at the plant to hear each other speak.

The ribbon-cutting ceremony included Congressmember Salud Carbajal and 3rd District County Supervisor Joan Hartmann, as well as outgoing water board president Farfalla Borah, newly reelected boardmember Lauren Hanson, and new boardmember Susan Klein-Rothschild, who is taking retiring board member Bill Rosen’s place.

Having moved to Goleta not long ago, Carbajal praised the district’s noticeably lower water rates and the district’s Net Zero policy, which reduces its carbon footprint while increasing its ability to withstand the power outages that often occur during disasters.

“Climate change presents a wide range of threats,” Carbajal said, “such as wildfire, like the one happening in Ventura County and Camarillo, extreme drought, and storms and flooding.”

Disaster was also on Supervisor Hartmann’s mind, as she and Carbajal talked with Tim Hade, cofounder of Scale Microgrids, which provided the battery system at Corona Del Mar. Hade explained that the cities along Santa Barbara County’s south coast are vulnerable to electrical outage in part because they are at the end of a very long transmission line which are susceptible to earthquake, fire, and flood. “The California Public Utilities Commission estimates it could take weeks or months to repair the grid, which would not only be an economic disaster, but a humanitarian one,” Hade said.

The Goleta Water District installation is, in essence, a micro-grid, storing enough power for 225 homes, or 1,000 megawatt hours, that routinely provides power during the expensive peak periods. 

In an emergency, the plant’s diesel generators could energize operations for about five days, but the micro-grid increased that longevity to several weeks. Hade said that virtual power plants similar to this, if installed at public places like schools or colleges, could provide peak-period power to the school, but in an emergency, also provide power to nearby residents to charge cell phones and laptop computers. It wouldn’t satisfy all electricity needs, but “some power is better than no power,” Hade said.

Alternative power isn’t all Goleta Water District has been up to. In March, the district finalized its first new well in 40 years, with $2 million of the $6.5 million cost coming from the Biden administration’s bipartisan infrastructure deal. Carbajal noted that the bill has brought more than $1 billion in projects and jobs to the Central Coast since passing in 2021.

The election result on Tuesday has put everything in doubt, Hade said, but 75 percent of the infrastructure funds has gone to Republican states. “Most think they’ll continue to be interested in those manufacturing jobs for solar panels and batteries,” he said, “and won’t be keen to cancel those.”