Santa Barbara residents and businesses will see an electricity rate increase on their April bills in response to energy market changes, Southern California Edison’s energy storage measures to support grid reliability and wildfire risk reduction.
An estimated increase for the average residential customer is about $5 per month, and the average business customer increase is about $10 per month based on 850kwh usage.
“As Santa Barbara’s energy partner, we are sharing this news proactively as it affects both Santa Barbara Clean Energy and Edison customers. The energy market is affected by many factors, but it appears the drought and a natural gas pipeline explosion last fall are the key drivers of the higher costs of energy procurement that we are all seeing,” said Alelia Parenteau, acting sustainability and resilience director.
“Added to these factors are Edison’s increased costs to improve the energy grid so that we all have more reliable service during extreme weather events and have better infrastructure in place to reduce wildfire risk.”
Santa Barbara Clean Energy provides customers with green energy that is delivered to local area homes and businesses by Edison. This is shown on every electricity bill under generation and delivery rates. Santa Barbara Clean Energy generation replaces prior Edison generation charges. Customers will see higher rates on both the generation and delivery charges tied to these factors.
“One of our goals in launching Santa Barbara Clean Energy is to provide cleaner electricity that supports Santa Barbarans with reserves to offset these energy market spikes in the future. Since we just launched residential service in October and commercial service in March, our program rates are positioned with Edison’s to provide a stable transition for customers. Over the next few years, our hope is to build up reserves and invest in generation programs locally that can help customers when energy markets fluctuate,” added Ms. Parenteau.
email: mmcmahon@newspress.com
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For more information call 805- 897-1979 or visit www.sbcleanenergy.com.
