What if San Diego blanketed land, reservoirs and buildings its Public Utilities Department owned with solar and used the money it made off that power to subsidize skyrocketing water rates for poorer people?
That’s the idea San Diego City Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera pitched during an uncomfortable series of debates over raising water rates on San Diegans by 63 percent over the next four years. The Public Utilities department owns 42,550 acres of land – about the size of Washington D.C. It could, in theory, lease that land out to solar developers and help bring down water rates, fix dams or otherwise prop-up a city department key to ensuring water is treated and distributed to 1.4 million people.
“We need to be more aggressive about finding sources besides ratepayers to find revenue,” Elo Rivera said during a 30-percent water rate increase vote on Oct. 28.
It’s illegal in California to raise water rates higher than what it costs to provide the service, a rule called Proposition 218. But it also means governments can’t move that money around, say, to subsidize poorer San Diegans’ water bills. This is a unique problem for water. Money San Diegans pay to their electric company, in contrast, is used to help poorer Californians pay their bills – a program called CARE.
So, why not use one to fund the other? Governments can set up accounts that accept donations or other money that doesn’t come from a water bill to help ratepayers shoulder these costs. And that’s how this potential solution might work.
San Diego helps run a public energy company with a handful of other cities in the county that could jump in to help make this happen: San Diego Community Power. Elo-Rivera sits on the company’s board and raised the issue there.
Jen Lebron, a spokesperson for San Diego Community Power, said they’re open to working with any and all cities and the county on creative ways to increase the development of power and save ratepayers money. But there are a number of obstacles to overcome.
Namely, enticing a renewable energy developer to want to build a project in San Diego in the first place. California’s rigid environmental laws and permitting processes add significant costs to projects, Lebron said. The state of the national and international economies – with new high tariffs coming down from the Trump Administration on the materials to build renewable power – add costs as well.
“All of that combined with the cost of power … could mean the project doesn’t pencil out,” Lebron said.
Here’s how it works now: The company puts out a public bid that says, we need “X” amount of power. Then renewable energy developers put in offers to build it for a certain price. Rarely is that renewable power built in San Diego County. Land is much cheaper or environmental restrictions, more lax, in Imperial County or New Mexico or Nevada where many of San Diego Community Power’s projects are being built.
“Making sure we’re keeping renewable power as affordable as possible is our number one priority,” Lebron said.
San Diego Community Power doesn’t decide where projects should be built. But it could. And it could also become a renewable energy developer if its governing board directed it to.
“That hasn’t really been our lane,” Lebron said. “Theoretically we could be a builder of power but we would need to do so much analysis around that. And it’s one of those areas where (community choice aggregators, which is what San Diego Community Power is) don’t have the expertise.”
Absolutely no. The utility department can’t even maintain what they’re in charge of now. Too many deals and side deals going on with developers. A utility electric company was voted down. And now this trial balloon. And Elo is termed out and I can’t wait to see him go away.
This is a BIG NO. Any money generated would quickly flow into to the general budget to fund the growth of local government.
The article doesn’t explain what electrical rate the Public Utilities Department water facilities are charged for pumping and treating water. It is probably far below the retail rate, so any electrical offsets only work if the City owns the solar and the systems are at the sites needing the electricity. The Public Utilities Department already has solar at its water treatment plants and natural gas from the landfill at some wastewater facilities. I think these systems were installed 20 to 25 years ago already. Having a third-party solar company install solar on City land may actually cost more than what Public Utilities already pays for electricity. A better alternative would be for the City to quickly repair Lake Hodges so the idled 40 MW hydroelectric facility can start operating again.
It is also a most wasteful policy of SDGE to not access the nearly constant, powerful winds of San Diego for electricity while utilizing highly polluting sources instead.
Yes, the Public Utilities Department (PUD) owns a lot of acreage. Most of it is outside the City limits as lakes, reservoirs and watersheds. San Pasqual Valley is within the City limits but is designated as an agricultural preserve. PUD’s core mission is to manage water supply and protect our watersheds, not to lease out reservoir and habitat lands for industrial use. Turning watershed property into solar fields could conflict with that mission and introduce environmental risks that outweigh the potential revenue.
Would like government not to do “any” business ventures – whether driving empty busses around, building houses on vacant school sites, high speed rail (see below), or pure water (will probably cost more than planned and cause a stink around San Diego wherever sewage is being pumped).
The savings could be used to “reduce” taxes and repair the roads.
“As of 2025, approximately $15 billion has been spent on the California High-Speed Rail project, with no high-speed track yet laid down.” “The estimated total cost of completing the full system between San Francisco and Los Angeles is now around $135 billion.
• This is a significant increase from the original estimate of about $33 billion.”
Elo-Rivera is focused only on increasing revenue; he never has a proposal to cut City government waste. VoSD recently discovered that City Staff ran up a $6 million bill without Council oversight. It’s probably the tip of the iceberg. How about addressing all those $2-$5 million drops-in-the-bucket that seem to flow out of the General Fund that, once started, never get looked at again? Elo-Rivera should do the job he was elected to do, instead of pretending to be an electrical systems engineer.