TEC was awarded a grant from the California Energy Commission and worked with established partners including UCLA, Los Angeles County Supervisor District 1, the Southern California Regional Energy Network, Day One, and LACI to create a scalable community model for producing local energy while ensuring disadvantaged communities are not left behind in the transformation of our energy future.
The Energy Coalition believes in an energy future where communities are energy-producing networks and clean energy is affordable and accessible for everyone. Today, there are many barriers to achieving this vision — local governments are resource constrained, planning and permitting community-scale energy projects can be quite complex, and there is a lack of standardization to the process.
The Challenge
The Advanced Energy Community (AEC) Project is breaking down barriers and The Energy Coalition is a crucial part of this collaborative effort. The AEC pilot program is creating a scalable community model in which enough local energy is produced to meet local needs while creating direct health and economic benefits for participating residents and building owners.
The project is a collaborative process among UCLA, The Energy Coalition, Los Angeles County Supervisor District 1, and Day One. These efforts are made possible by funding from the California Energy Commission’s EPIC Challenge, which supports the development of innovative and replicable plans
for accelerating the deployment of Advanced Energy Communities.
Our Strategy
For the Advanced Energy Community project, TEC developed a zero net electricity community master plan in the Bassett-Avocado disadvantaged community in unincorporated LA County. This includes integrated demand side management (IDSM) program design and delivery, community renewable energy program design, customer engagement, access to electric vehicles and enhanced mobility, potential for increased resiliency, improved standards of living and alleviation of local grid constraints.
Result: A scalable model for energy communities of the future
The AEC Pilot will give Avocado Heights/Bassett residents the opportunity to reduce energy use and purchase solar energy from a community-scale project. Furthermore, the community master plan provides more affordable and 100% renewable electricity, higher performance buildings, access to electric vehicle charging, energy cost savings, and support for local clean energy jobs and workforce development.
64%
Greenhouse gas reduction
47%
Energy use reduction
Social Justice
Serving Disadvantaged Communities
41%
Net present cost reduction to customers
What’s Next
With a zero net electricity community master plan drafted for the Bassett-Avocado disadvantaged community in unincorporated LA County, the next step is building out the proposed design and carefully tracking successes and challenges. The Energy Coalition and our partners’ approach to accelerating the spread of energy communities of the future throughout California can then be replicated, bringing energy, environmental, and financial benefits to families and businesses statewide.
Disadvantaged community defined based on CalEnviroScreen 3.0 criteria. These criteria incorporate a number of indicators based on geographic, socioeconomic, public health, and environmental hazard criteria.
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