Crushing Your Carbon Footprint

If you would like to significantly reduce your carbon footprint, you’ve got several options to consider, including adopting a vegan diet, going car-free (or buying an electric car), or avoiding long flights. Or, if you—like most Del Mar residents— are a Clean Energy Alliance customer, you’ve got a much easier and cheaper option. You can opt up for 100% renewable energy for less than $3 a month. Combine that with any of the other options and your impact will be even greater.

When the Clean Energy Alliance (CEA) began providing electricity to Del Mar residents in May 2021, most customers began purchasing the default electricity offering of 50% renewable/75% carbon-free (mainly hydroelectric) electricity. However, many residents may not have realized that they could easily opt up to the “Green Impact” level, where they would use 100% renewable energy for their electricity, at an additional cost of only $2 to $3 a month.

This is true for even those customers who decided to “opt out” and continued buying electricity from San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E). Once a customer has been back with SDG&E for 12 months, they become eligible to enroll with CEA. They can make that election by contacting CEA’s call center at 833-232-3110.  Per SDG&E rules, SDG&E requests 6-months notice of their intent to return to CEA. However, customers can request that SDG&E consider allowing them to return immediately.  SDG&E customers should note that the utility no longer offers its “Clean Impact” program so CEA provides the only option for 100% clean energy.

CEA’s planned expansion and growing customer base should enable CEA to continue providing cleaner energy at lower rates than SDG&E. This April, CEA will begin serving customers in San Marcos and Escondido, increasing the number of accounts from 66,000 to 160,000.

CEA’s members—Del Mar, Solana Beach, Carlsbad, Oceanside, and soon Escondido, and San Marcos—are able to pool their communities’ demands and increase their purchasing power for higher renewable energy content. Excess revenue will be reinvested in Del Mar and the other North County communities through on-bill savings, innovative energy projects, and low-cost energy programs—including rebates and incentives.