Basset-Avocado Advanced Energy Community

Project Update

In 2025, the Bassett and Avocado Heights Advanced Energy Community (BAAEC) team made significant progress in implementing key initiatives. 

The project expanded its Advanced Homes program into a service capable of providing full single-family home electrification. The total upgrades at the end of 2025 stand at 46 solar installations, 45 homes with battery storage, and 78 home end-use electrification upgrades on 40 homes in partnership with the SCE Building Electrification pilot. In order to complete this work, the project invested in necessary home remediation: 57% (26) of participating low-income homeowners received full or partial re-roofs and 76% (35) required new electrical panels. The M&V analysis for a subset of homes showed a 35% reduction in total monthly energy costs, despite electrification measures. These are tangible affordability and quality of life improvements but were challenging to achieve – BAAEC screened hundreds of homes for eligibility.

The team completed final commissioning, close-out, and reporting requirements on its Community Solar projects - the first two-site aggregation resource to enter CAISO under the Distributed Energy Resource Aggregation construct.  In partnership with Clean Power Alliance (CPA), the 670 KW of rooftop solar across the two sites serves approximately 360 low-income households at a 20% discount on their electric bill. 

In 2025, BAAEC closed its innovative CarShare program. Branded as SGV CarShare, the program explored pricing points and car reservation durations to find the best match for community needs. Out of the thousands of outreach touchpoints, 175 individuals signed up to indicate initial interest and 36 of those took additional steps for enrollment. Ultimately, eleven individuals enrolled in the program and received services. To support the limited EV infrastructure in the community and promote EV ownership, the project provided six participants with no-cost Level-2 home EV chargers. The chargers have the capability to be publicly accessible and offer homeowners the opportunity to earn money when neighbors charge. 

The BAAEC demonstration project received an extension to June 2026, which will allow for the installation of a few pending residential upgrades. The extra time will also enable the installation of the significantly delayed 30 EV chargers across three local public schools. 

In 2026, the team will focus its efforts in knowledge sharing activities. Project implementation key learnings and insights will be packaged into CEC reporting deliverables, including the Final Report, a Case Study, and a Scalability Toolkit. The team will also participate in a joint AEC Symposium on February 19, in collaboration with the three other AEC projects, to share findings and inspire critical conversations around decarbonization topics. These efforts will ensure that the project’s impact and lessons learned can inform future clean energy initiatives.