CityofSantaBarbara
Source: City of Santa Barbara
In order to ensure that our customers are getting the very best information about their electricity service, Santa Barbara Clean Energy is sharing a recent announcement made by Southern California Edison (Edison) stating that it has raised its electricity delivery rates by an average of $0.02/kWh effective October 1st. This rate increase will equate to roughly $10 per month for the average customer and will affect both Santa Barbara Clean Energy and Edison customers. Edison’s rate increase is tied to the delivery of electricity to ALL customers in Santa Barbara (and the entire Edison service area) and is based on the increasing costs of updating poles, wires, and other infrastructure. For more information visit www.sce.com/bill_change.
“Edison’s rate increase is specifically related to the infrastructure needed to deliver power to homes and businesses,” shares Alelia Parenteau, acting sustainability and resilience co-director. “They’ve had to increase rates dramatically in recent years due to heavy investment in infrastructure to prevent wildfires and modernize their grid. Most Santa Barbarans have seen Edison crews working on power poles and wires in their neighborhoods.”
Santa Barbara Clean Energy provides customers with green energy, and Edison delivers the electricity. This is shown on every electricity bill under procurement and delivery rates. Santa Barbara Clean Energy procurement rates are staying the same. Edison’s delivery rate will show the increase of $0.02/kWh on customers’ November statements reflecting October electricity use.
Santa Barbara Clean Energy’s mission is to offer customers green energy options with continued reliable electric service to achieve our community’s ambitious climate goals. This is particularly important because local electricity use accounts for over 20% of Santa Barbara’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Santa Barbara Clean Energy also offers incentives and programs to its customers that leverage Santa Barbara Clean Energy’s carbon-free electricity in ways that will greatly help achieve the city’s carbon neutrality goals. Benefits include rebates on electric vehicles, reduced-cost electric bike memberships, trying out induction cookware, home energy audits, and discounts on locally made battery back-up systems.
For more information about the Santa Barbara Clean Energy program, the various clean energy choices, programs and incentives, frequently asked questions and more, please visit www.SBCleanEnergy.com or call (805) 897-1979.
8.9% increase, that is A LOT!! We need some “utility control” laws on the books a la rent control, that is really too much.
We wash our clothes by hand and also hang up our clothes to dry. All of our rechargeable devices are charged via our mini-solar systems. If you are serious about saving our planet, then do something about it, unlike the wealthy class eco-warriors who fly in their private planes to “Climate Summits” all the time. Stop talking about it and do your part….and you can start by getting an MTD bus pass and stop ordering products online that you can easily buy locally.
Wait until the climate-friendly Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant shuts down permanently in 2 years. Rate increases on the order of 25% are expected,
The chickens are coming home to roost! The wildfire liability issue is probably the biggest driver here. I think the social contract for 100% grid reliability incorporates the risk that shit can happen. It’s a total bummer when it happens to you, but it’s baked into the cake. Next we have the “price on carbon” scam to make energy more expensive. The costs always trickle down to us suckers that need energy for stuff. The cost of energy isn’t just a “us” problem, look at China and Europe. China has been rationing electricity, and people are going to die this winter.
A % of every bill you pay is SUPPOSED to go towards upgrading/maintaining their infrastructure… INSTEAD, Edison Administrators and Management give themselves BILLIONS of dollars in raises annually. Pay up suckers
Aging coastal nuclear plant on a fault line. What could possibly go wrong?
BABYCAKES – All well and good for you. But it is difficult to be serious about saving the planet when all the Al Gore-types have carbon footprints bigger than some countries, Bitcoin and Facebook servers consume unconscionable amounts of energy and several billion third-world populations (including China and India) aspire to the middle class and all the energy-consuming activities that includes. Oh, and how did the recent COP26 go without China and Russia? Just a few out of hundreds of examples to be made.
I’m afraid you may win some small personal battles, but, alas, the war is already lost. So enjoy what you can while you can. Que sra, sera!
There is nothing any individual can do at this point other than temporarily alleviate their own guilt.
Any substantive solution to climate change will take the entire planet’s population acting as one unified entity – which we all know has never been done and never will be done.
This earth is going to shake us off like fleas on a dog and it has all been our own doing.
8.9% is not too bad, that’s probably close to what inflation is running these days. Unfortunately, the cost of energy is going up much faster than the general rate of inflation, including natural gas which we depend on for heat and electricity. It may take a little time for this price increase to trickle down to utility bills, but you can be assured that it will particularly if we have a cold winter. Food is also going up fast. Beef is already up on the order of 40%. Rents are also climbing, up about 10% up from a year ago. Unfortunately, wages are rising more slowly, up only about 6%. If your not getting close to a 10% raise every year, you’re getting a pay cut. Inflation always squeezes the folks who have to work for a living and rewards those who are invested.
Yeah, PITMIX, that’s the problem – that we allow states to refuse to hold the waste, even if they generated it. And of course, same goes for the nuclear waste from submarines and Aircraft carriers, which is technically the responsibility of the entire US. This has been going on for decades.
That is incorrect to state that nuclear waste is being stored unsafely at plants that generate it. The US has very successfully stored nuclear waste safely since the 50’s. What many also don’t appreciate is that why nuclear waste is hazardous, the actual volume of waste produced is rather minuscule.
What’s mindboggling is that even though they’re shutting down Diablo and San Clemente, the waste is still being stored onsite. Simply asinine to have built the infrastructure of a plant, having it now producing carbon free electricity, then shut it down while storing the nuclear waste on site. Makes a great talking point for elections but a big step backward in the actual reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Newsome just authorized the construction of diesel generators (a step above coal in it’s dirtiness) to shore up our power grid. Prudent thing to do was keep these plants operating until alterative green sources (which is not diesel generators) can be brought online.
A little education on nuclear fission as a source of power:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lsquo-advanced-rsquo-nuclear-reactors-don-rsquo-t-hold-your-breath/
Subtitle from your link: “There’s little evidence that they’d be cheaper or safer than existing designs” Yes, because the existing technology is safe and has excellent safety record particularly in the US. Safer than oil and coal. The two international incidents in the past 70 years; one was the result of gross negligence (Chernobyl) , the other an extreme natural disaster (Fukishima) the repercussions of which were less drastic than other industrial accidents and oil spills. Fact check: true but very misleading.
@ 1:25. In full agreement. Glad to see some sane, rational minds exist around this place.
LOL. I meant to say 2:07 is right. 1:42 is NOT right.
Who remembers the lawsuits. Yay this is how they get us back.
Standard right-wing BS to bash science. There is no safe method yet devised for handling nuclear waste from fission, and the upfront costs to build/time to recoup such are large. Wind and solar are much cheaper, and their advantage is increasing with time.
Al Gore does not have a footprint bigger than some countries. With that misstatement, how can we trust anything else you say?
Fewer customers means less profit from the existing ones. So they have to charge more. This was inevitable.
Information on the relative costs of green energy, including fission, showing that fission is not a rational choice. The “new design” molten salt reactors have problems with containment vessel erosion, and still produce waste isotopes that are dangerous for hundreds of years. Their upfront costs and insurance costs are huge. No matter your ideology, lifecycle analysis shows that wind and solar are cheaper and better.
https://www.nrel.gov/analysis/life-cycle-assessment.html
https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6277
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/the-decreasing-cost-of-renewables-unlikely-to-plateau-anytime-soon/
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/839371
Evaluations of some of the lies that are being spread about green energy:
https://skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-baseload-power.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-investment-kills-jobs.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/renewable-energy-is-too-expensive.htm
https://skepticalscience.com/lives-clean-energy-save-by-state.html
7:51 – Excellent data in your post. It shows that you parrot big carbon, and have no factual support, just hysteria and invective.
This is an astoundingly ignorant comment. To think that people have no idea CA has the PUC or that utilities are heavily regulated is amazing to me. This person actually found it easier to post their ignorance than to do a 5 second search to learn something. This pretty much sums up our modern culture of “my ignorance is the same as YOUR FACTS”…
Educate yourselves and you won’t be either (a) angry, or (b) fooled…
Climate friendly? Your understanding of nuclear waste is the same as your understanding of everything else Loon. Astoundingly naive to state that nuclear fission is environmentally safe. I suppose to you, leaving radioactive waste to be managed by countless future generations, for 5000+ years is perhaps the least environmentally friendly thing anyone could do…
PITMIX – Simply using hyperbole for effect. Don’t take everything literally.
Why do people feel they have to lie to protect those who they admire? I do not know, but………Al Gore’s carbon footprint is larger than each of these countries: San Marino, Vatican City, Nauru, and Tuvalu.
Santa Barbara is lying when they say their energy is “greener.” There is no “greener” energy, it is all the same. SB gets kick backs for offering this amazing “greener” energy, it’s a crock of sh!#. When you turn on a light bulb and you’re connected to the grid. The light bulb does not know you are buying “greener” energy it just does what you tell it do and turns on. The electrons just flow and there is no distinction between a greener electron when you are on the grid. The only greener energy is if you are personally producing it in a “green” way.
It will have absolutely no impact on our current climate situation. The changes are here, it will only get worse, it would have maybe been a little better if we had done something about it 30 years ago but now just hold on for the ride because the roller coaster has just left the platform. It’s sad…
PITMIX – At least they’re thinking in the right direction. If only they used our engineering and construction firms that specialize in nukes.
Observer, your understanding of nuclear waste is elementary, at best. Scaremongering and ignorant. Sounds like you watched too much The Simpsons and thought nuclear waste is glowing green goo. There are endless safe ways to manage nuclear waste.
Stop pandering to morons and making excuses for their behavior. This is the reason our society is so messed up. Stop giving these people air. They should be shamed and better yet, ignored.
If we stop giving the idiots time and mind, we can take our society back from the invasion of stupidity that is overwhelming our country. Remember this commenter went on a tirade of anger because they DID NOT KNOW SOMETHING. Exactly like the entire conservative media and political discourse.
OK then, go ahead and cite the various methods for safe disposal of nuclear waste for eternity. There are billions to be made, so what’s your excuse for keeping these solutions to yourself?
Nuclear waste is literally stored all over this country. When was the last time you were affected? Have you ever traveled to France? Were you worried about a nuclear meltdown or being poisoned by stored spent nuclear waste while you were there? Stop being a histrionic about nuclear waste.
What ever happened to ChemicalSuperFreak? Sure hope he is ok. He would be a great resource for explaining the numerous safe ways to store nuclear waste. Like our shared favorite, burying it in the Canadian Shield. Where it won’t see the light of day for millions of years. Nuclear waste is put in safe containers and can literally just be stored on open lots. Unless you drive a missile straight into one on those canisters and live literally 25′ from that blast site, there is nothing to worry about. A lot of big babies on this board. Never seen so many grown adults hysterical about something so trivially threatening. Oh, wait… we also have the anti-vaxxers. The anti-vaxxers and the anti-nukers have a lot in common. It’s called histrionics and a complete detachment from reality.
This argument doesn’t hold a charge, to me. If the source of the electrons is greener, then the electrons powering your 80-in TV will be greener. Their greenness will not be absorbed by the nuclear power electrons in the SCE grid being sent to SBTownie. If you are trying to argue that they don’t have more access to greener power sources than SCE uses, then you have to provide a link for that.
Name one, given that no state in the US will accept nuclear waste, and it is currently stored unsafely at the sites that generated it.
Numerous safe ways, now I’ve heard everything!
So you’re really telling me you’re worried about waste up in SLO at Diablo Canyon? That keeps you up at night? The theatrics around this place are truly mind boggling.
“There is no safe method yet devised for handling nuclear waste from fission”. So, exactly what have we been doing the past 70 years?
Pitmix, it does not work like that. Green energy is not stored somewhere special to make your tv greener, your electric car greener. You are using a power grid that is made up of almost all fossil fuel generation. You can’t buy green energy but you can create these “community energy groups” to make people think that is happening, change rates around to benefit city councils pocket books. Our power grid is not set up like that. Do your our research and find your own link…
SCE is still distributing your power. It is irrelevant who you choose to procure the power. The SCE rate hike will impact all.
That nuclear reactor that Bill Gates likes- not a one has been built in the US. I don’t think we should base our plans on an untested unproven technology that generates toxic waste with nowhere to put it.
As for French nuclear power, are we really emulating their science now? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-nuclear-accidents/factbox-a-brief-history-of-french-nuclear-accidents-idUSTRE78B59J20110912
Miked, if they have contracts with solar and wind farms, then their power can certainly be greener. To the extent that they need supplemental fossil fuel power during cold days, and nights, then they will still use fossil fuel until they get their storage worked out. That is just the current reality. BTW, you do know that generating electricity and using it in your Tesla is way more efficient than converting gas to power in your Hummer or Jeep, right?
“Natural gas power plants are 42-60% efficient. ”
“EVs convert over 77% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the wheels.”
So total efficiency is 32 to 46%.
Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 12%–30% of the energy stored in gasoline to power at the wheels.”
You still don’t understand…Yes if you generate your own power and store it then yes it is better for charging your toys. Plugging in your toys without your own storage system well then, you’re using the grid, therefore fossil fuels. The only thing an EV does is convert AC to DC from the grid, they don’t save energy.