“And power was out for a while,” he said. The decades-long water rights case was settled just 15 years ago, when Cozart was already well into his career with the casino.Ĭozart, who grew up on the 7,000-acre reservation, remembers pretty frequent power outages.

“Obviously, it’s all we got.”Ī timeline stretching across one casino wall details the history of the Soboba people, including their long struggle for rights to their land and the rivers and springs that once sustained them. “We’re doing our best to take care of the land that we have,” he said. It’s all in line with the tribe’s mission to be good stewards of their ancestral home, Cozart said. The project also will relieve some strain on the state’s energy grid, to the benefit of all Californians. Soboba Casino Resort, for example, is projected to cut its carbon footprint by 1,000 pounds a year, or the equivalent of taking 4,800 gas-powered cars off the road, once its microgrid is up and running. Since the electric grid still gets a significant share of its power from fossil fuels, adding a microgrid that’s powered by renewable energy (such as solar panels) can dramatically reduce a business, agency or community’s carbon footprint.

Some also are pursuing microgrids to meet environmental goals. They’re also building out a local power grid for a fruit packing facility in Fresno and for a food distribution company near Scale Microgrid’s California headquarters in Los Angeles. His company is developing a microgrid to power Santa Margarita Water District’s water and wastewater treatment facilities in south Orange County.

And Guillermo Gomez with Scale Microgrids - which partnered with Soboba on its project - said interest in microgrids has never been higher. But in recent years, the price of solar energy has come down while traditional electricity costs and available funding for renewable energy projects have shot up. That’s why hospitals and prisons, which can’t risk power outages, have used microgrids for years. They typically tie into the larger energy grid but can be disconnected to operate independently, with battery storage and control systems that run like mini utilities.ĭone right, microgrids can lower utility bills, offer reliable backup power and even take some businesses or communities entirely off the currently strained power grid.

Microgrids are independent electricity networks, where a local energy source like solar panels is used to power an adjacent building, a collection of buildings, or an entire neighborhood.

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