Santa Barbara’s public school system is finalizing a solar microgrid project that could set a model for investment in clean backup power.
Purveyors of carbon-free backup power have struggled for years to convince customers to pay for resilience. But a novel design will save the Santa Barbara Unified School District considerable amounts of money while creating resilience for critical infrastructure in the face of California’s many and varied calamities. All of this requires no upfront purchase by the schools and shields them from financial risk if the system does not perform.
