Santa Barbara Electric Grid Upgrade Begins
As part of a multi-billion dollar upgrade, Santa Barbara Edison (SCE) is launching projects to improve the grid in Santa Barbara.
The utility announced plans to start a project near Santa Barbara City College beginning Friday from 1-5 a.m. It is the first of several projects geared to improve the reliability of power in the downtown area.
Merchants and city leaders have been concerned after a series of outages plunged downtown businesses into darkness, causing problems ranging from traffic jams to the cancellation of major public events.
SCE’s first project begins Friday near Castillo and Cabrillo near the Santa Barbara Harbor and City College. At that site, switches buried underground will be installed. SCE says the equipment will allow the utility better control over electric circuits, safer maintenance, and the ability to isolate outages to smaller areas.
“Upgrading the circuits in Santa Barbara will help minimize the likelihood of unanticipated and extended outages,” said SCE Public Affairs region manager Rondi Guthrie. “We’re not only improving reliability, but building a smarter grid that can handle the needs of customers for decades to come,” Guthrie said.
According to Southern California Edison, notices were sent out to the businesses and homes that the outage will affect. . But the General Manager from Best Western said he never received a notice.
“The project itself is going to be useful due to the numerous outages we have had over the years in this area. However, the notification process obviously didn’t work out very well for anybody at this time,” Harvey Robbins, Best Western General Manger.
