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Community Power to relaunch Solar Battery Savings program Sept. 30; staff expects thousands of households to participate
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Summary
San Diego Community Power plans to relaunch the Solar Battery Savings program on Sept. 30 with a public press event Oct. 1; staff projects roughly 4,000 additional homes this year and program growth in subsequent years, includes higher incentives for new systems and a required DERMS integration.
San Diego Community Power will relaunch its Solar Battery Savings (SBS) residential program on Sept. 30, with a public press event planned for Oct. 1, staff announced at the Sept. 25 board meeting.
Colin Santulli, senior director of programs, summarized the pilot (June–November 2024) and described the relaunch design. The pilot supported about 2,200 batteries across 1,600 homes with average upfront incentives of roughly $7,000; Santulli said about 40% of incentive dollars went to customers in income-qualified categories (CARE/FERA). The relaunch will emphasize new solar-plus-storage systems to "grow the pie" of residential solar, offer relatively higher incentives for new installations vs. add-on batteries, and continue program goals to reach customers in communities of concern and reduce system peak demand.
Program mechanics to note: - Performance incentive remains at $0.10 per kilowatt-hour discharged to the grid on enrolled days (the program's grid-value payment to customers). - Enrollment will require integration of participating systems into the agency's distributed energy resource management system (DERMS) to support the agency's virtual power plant objectives. - Program dispatch will cover weekdays; the operational dispatch window will move from two hours in the pilot to four hours in the relaunch.
Santulli said the agency has $18 million allocated in the FY 2026 budget for SBS and that this relaunch is designed as a multiyear program with stepped incentive reductions over time. Staff expects to support roughly 4,000 homes in the coming program year and potentially over 10,000 homes in future years depending on budget allocations.
Contractor enrollment was completed by Sept. 25; staff held multiple contractor training sessions and partnered with IBEW Local 569 and a local distributor for outreach. Public workshops and targeted marketing to underrepresented communities are planned for Q4.
Ending: Staff said the relaunch seeks to expand residential solar-plus-storage adoption, provide bill relief and create a controllable distributed energy resource that will add capacity for system needs. The board received the item (receipt on file) and staff will report program uptake to the board on a regular basis.
