DATE:
March 25, 2026
03
TO:
Board of Supervisors
SUBJECT
Title
UPDATE ON THE ENERGY SUPPLY STUDY AND RELATED CEQA EXEMPTION (DISTRICTS: ALL)
Body
OVERVIEW
On May 24, 2023 (09), the San Diego County Board of Supervisors (Board) directed an energy supply study, hereinafter referred to as the Energy Access, Resilience, and Capacity Study (Energy ARC), to research and provide recommendations for renewable energy generation, transmission, distribution, and storage capacity in the San Diego region that considers resiliency from power outages, economic benefits and costs, and local community context. Energy ARC will inform next steps the County and other regional partners can take to optimize the development of renewable energy systems that meet both future energy demands and climate action goals. On April 10, 2024 (10), the Board approved the award of a contract with the Alliance for Sustainable Energy LLC, the contracting authority for the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR), previously known as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a national laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy, to procure services for this study led by the Office of Sustainability and Environmental Justice (OSEJ) and to return to the Board to approve continuation of this work each year. The contract was executed on April 28, 2025, for a performance period of 24 months.
NLR is leading the analysis of current and future energy generation, transmission, distribution, and storage capacity in the San Diego region using advanced proprietary and open source modeling software. NRL's work for the County on this project consists of three research tasks: 1) research and baseline analysis; 2) capacity analysis; and 3) barriers and impact analysis. All research tasks, along with feedback and community-led recommendations gathered throughout the process, will be incorporated into a full report that is anticipated to be completed by April 2027. Based on the initial findings o...
Click here for full text