Thank you,
BAAEC community!

While securing enrollment proved to be more difficult than expected due to numerous factors, BAAEC implemented multiple outreach and engagement strategies to deliver program services to residents:

• Conducted more than 150 outreach activities across all initiatives
• Received interest from more than 700 households across all initiatives
• Screened more than 500 households across all initiatives
• Recruited and enrolled 38 participants in a Solar PV training program, with 32 graduates

Retrofits were completed on 46 single-family homes, with the installation of generation and storage (46 homes with rooftop solar PV and 45 homes with battery storage) and electrification (28 heat pump water heaters (HPWH), 10 HP HVAC, 21 induction ranges, and 15 electric dryers). 

This work was funded by stacking $1.8M across three different rebates and $400K from two additional complementary grants. The average household experienced an overall savings of $38.45/month in total energy expenditures (a 35% utility bill reduction). The load flexibility provided by the battery and programmable appliances serves to reduce the coincident peak as a larger grid benefit.

The simulation found that, with the ability to access compensation and pricing for Prosumer power within a network hosted by a local market maker, participants could average on the order of 9 percent savings in volumetric electricity costs (not including the transmission and delivery system operator delivery costs) compared to a standard time of use rate for energy consumption and a net-billing tariff for solar generation exports.

The Prosumer Network is a submarket that can better account for the benefits of local power, and can help mitigate over-building of the utility grid, putting downward pressure on utility rates. 

The project built the first-of-its-kind two-site aggregation community solar project. A total of 670 KW was installed across the two sites, which are scheduled with CAISO as a single resource, and serve approximately 350 households. In total, the project’s outreach team enrolled more than 400 income-qualified households into the Clean Power Alliance’s PowerShare program, where they receive a 20 percent discount on their bills. Community solar generates local generation with less system loss for greater efficiency.

Despite not reaching implementation of the resilience center, BAAEC worked through substantial project development with important learnings related to planning and procurement barriers.

A total of 30 chargers were installed across three campuses within Bassett Unified School District and $87,000 in SCE rebates were secured in support of new infrastructure. By locating EV charging infrastructure at a public school for staff and the community, it encourages daytime charging with associated grid benefits.

This project element provided 9 enrollees with EV rentals, 4 of whom also received home EV chargers. With fewer internal combustion cars on the road, the community realizes better air quality and reduced healthcare costs.

BAAEC sought to better understand current pollution conditions within the community, given that the project area has been long impacted by high concentrations of fossil-fuel combustion by-products. Technological advancements are enabling new approaches to monitoring pollution at a local scale, and BAAEC aimed to test the capabilities of three technology approaches in a real-world setting: street-level monitoring, measurement of heavy-duty vehicle tailpipe emissions, and indoor air quality related to the use of gas and induction stoves.

The BAAEC model used a portfolio-of-projects approach, with integrated outreach and community engagement. This approach brings multiple benefits for future program implementation, as follows:

1. Strengthening community capacity to lead in the energy transition: An integrated approach can better engage and fund community participation. Narrowly-focused projects/programs may lack the budget for meaningful engagement of community organizations. 
2. Addressing systemic barriers:  An integrated approach lends itself to establishing a long-term framework for activities based in understanding and addressing the root cause of problems, rather than short-term transactions. It also invites public-sector and other community-serving organizations to share community needs and opportunities. 
3. Differentiation for trust-building:  An integrated approach is most likely to attract and retain mission-aligned partners who see community transformation as the ultimate goal. Mission-aligned partners, working with the community interests in mind, foster community trust and differentiate the program from predatory practices and bad-actors who may be operating in the community. This sets the stage for community-led problem-solving and the partner governance and implementation procedures that are essential to attract funding and financing partners. 
4. Beyond energy, communities experience increased resilience, wellbeing, and economic development:  An integrated approach invites other community-serving organizations to the table, such as those focusing on health, social, economic, and housing issues. This adds further layers to the wraparound and customer-centered services, creating a positive feedback loop and mutual reinforcement among elements. It creates efficiencies in community outreach and engagement, and strengthens the roles and capacities of organizations working in these spaces. Moreover, because energy is just one of many important concerns for people, the integrated approach helps work through the reality of competing priorities through its inclusive and diverse set of entry points. 
5. From individual to collective decision making:  The integrated approach eases the decision making process for individual participants by offering multiple paths for engagement and creating a space for peer learning and group-based approaches to education and decision making. Potential hesitancy and mistrust is better addressed when individuals see engagement across programs and services – it’s less of a sale of a product or service, and more of an invitation to join a collective movement.
6. Opportunity for community-centered local investment:  The integrated approach can develop solutions across various community concerns—such as clean energy, climate resilience, social, and wellbeing—and can build an environment that attracts investment and supports local prosperity.