Solar microgrid offers Soboba tribe independence, with model many users could adapt

Done right, microgrids can lower utility bills, offer reliable backup power and even take some businesses or communities entirely off the strained grid.        

    By     BROOKE STAGGS   |     bstaggs@scng.com   | Southern California News Group    

 PUBLISHED:     July 2, 2023 at 7:00 a.m.   | UPDATED:     July 2, 2023 at 7:00 a.m.  

By this time next year, nearly 3,000 solar panels will span the roof of Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, powering the flashy slot machines, air conditioned hotel rooms and golf course facilities that dot the tribe’s 474,000-square-foot resort.

Utility services for Native Americans can be problematic. Tribes across the United States report pricier electric bills, more frequent outages and a higher percentage of homes with no electricity at all than those figures for Americans who don’t live on tribal lands. So with a surge in federal funding available to help offset the costs of installing renewable energy projects, the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians has joined the growing number of tribes who are building out microgrids to help flip the switch on that dynamic.

“It’s about independence,” said Jason Cozart, who’s one of 1,200 tribe members and assistant general manager of Soboba Casino Resort. “Self sufficiency for any tribe is important, and this is just another form of that.”

Microgrids are independent electricity networks, where a local energy source like solar panels is used to power an adjacent building, a collection of buildings, or an entire neighborhood. They typically tie into the larger energy grid but can be disconnected to operate independently, with battery storage and control systems that run like mini utilities.

Done right, microgrids can lower utility bills, offer reliable backup power and even take some businesses or communities entirely off the currently strained power grid. That’s why hospitals and prisons, which can’t risk power outages, have used microgrids for years. But in recent years, the price of solar energy has come down while traditional electricity costs and available funding for renewable energy projects have shot up. And Guillermo Gomez with Scale Microgrids — which partnered with Soboba on its project — said interest in microgrids has never been higher.

His company is developing a microgrid to power Santa Margarita Water District’s water and wastewater treatment facilities in south Orange County. They’re also building out a local power grid for a fruit packing facility in Fresno and for a food distribution company near Scale Microgrid’s California headquarters in Los Angeles.

For new construction, some cold storage companies and other businesses that require lots of energy around the clock are being told utilities won’t be able to connect them to the grid for a year or more, or that they can only get steady power during off-peak months.

“You can’t really run a business like that,” Gomez said. So some of those companies are asking Scale Microgrids and its competitors to power them up with independent microgrids as soon as possible.

Some also are pursuing microgrids to meet environmental goals. Since the electric grid still gets a significant share of its power from fossil fuels, adding a microgrid that’s powered by renewable energy (such as solar panels) can dramatically reduce a business, agency or community’s carbon footprint.

Soboba Casino Resort, for example, is projected to cut its carbon footprint by 1,000 pounds a year, or the equivalent of taking 4,800 gas-powered cars off the road, once its microgrid is up and running. The project also will relieve some strain on the state’s energy grid, to the benefit of all Californians.

It’s all in line with the tribe’s mission to be good stewards of their ancestral home, Cozart said.

“We’re doing our best to take care of the land that we have,” he said. “Obviously, it’s all we got.”

A timeline stretching across one casino wall details the history of the Soboba people, including their long struggle for rights to their land and the rivers and springs that once sustained them. The decades-long water rights case was settled just 15 years ago, when Cozart was already well into his career with the casino.

Cozart, who grew up on the 7,000-acre reservation, remembers pretty frequent power outages. “And power was out for a while,” he said. “We weren’t necessarily the priority on getting things back up and running.”

The tribe’s relationship with Southern California Edison and other utilities is far better today, he said. But those memories naturally fuel the tribe’s desire to be as self-sufficient as possible, Cozart said, “so that we can determine our own future.”

That’s why they recently finished construction on their own gas station, the Road Runner Express. And it’s why they’re pursuing this microgrid project.

The microgrid will allow the casino to operate in what’s called “grid-parallel mode,” Gomez explained. That means they’ll use solar power during the day and grid energy when it’s cheap and reliable at night. But they’ll also store solar energy on site, in batteries behind the casino in a space about the size of two shipping containers that’s now used as parking spots for resort work trucks. They can then sell that stored energy back to Southern California Edison during peak demand or, crucially, use it as needed for their own backup power.

The tribe already has a system in place to ensure the casino won’t go dark if there’s an outage from Edison, whether it’s rolling blackouts or if power is being cut during high wind events as a way to reduce wildfire risk. But if the electricity goes down now, the casino switches to diesel-powered emergency backup generators, which spew out lots of harmful pollutants.

Soboba isn’t ditching those generators entirely, in case true emergencies arise. But once the microgrid is in place, they’ll be able to use solar power for outages when the sun is shining and backup battery power for when it’s not. Gomez projects they’ll have enough stored juice to run the casino for four to eight hours.

The entire design will have a capacity of 1.5 megawatts. And Gomez said projects of this size on average save customers 22% on monthly utility charges.

Soboba started talking with Scale Microgrids back in early 2021. So last summer, when Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, the teams had a shovel-ready proposal that helped them land several grants to cover roughly half of the total project cost, which they declined to share.

Without that funding, Cozart said they would have found a way to move the microgrid project forward eventually. Now, the plan is to start construction in January and flip the switch next June.

As part of those funding agreements, Soboba members agreed to establish the casino as a designated cooling center. That means it will be open, as capacity allows, for a nearby mobile home park, neighboring retirement communities and other area residents.

They’re also looking to add the casino’s first charging stations for electric vehicles and do more electrification projects. And this could be just the start.

The casino’s microgrid has the potential to double in size down the road, allowing the tribe to go completely off the grid. By covering the parking lot with solar panels and adding more battery capacity, Gomez said their calculations show they could cover about 90% of demand. And he said they’re looking at other options, such as hydrogen power, to close any remaining gap.

It helps, Gomez said, that Soboba members already had done some energy projects before. That included installing solar panels several years ago to power the reservation’s sports complex, tribal administration building and other facilities.

Some other tribes, such as the Pechanga Band of Indians in Pechanga, have even developed their own full-fledged power utilities. But for tribes that haven’t yet ventured down that path, Gomez said there’s understandably some skepticism when an outside company like his approaches.

It doesn’t help that some solar companies have made big promises to tribes in place like Imperial Valley about the potential for power generation, cost savings or local jobs and failed to deliver. So Gomez advises anyone considering a microgrid project to insist on paying nothing up front and having performance guarantees in place, so they won’t have to pay during any month where the system doesn’t perform as spelled out in the contract.

He also recommends finding a company that offers options in terms of who owns the equipment and how it’s financed. Soboba, for example, will own its equipment, in keeping with that self-sufficiency goal. But for the Santa Margarita Water District projects, his company will own and operate the batteries.

With funds still available from the Inflation Reduction Act and other programs, Gomez said, “I think we’re at a precipice,” with lots of these microgrid projects set to take off.