san diego gas & electric
South Orange County Reliability Enhancement (SOCRE)
Comm LAB served as the lead community outreach agency supporting SDG&E’s South Orange County Reliability Enhancement (SOCRE) project. Prior to the SOCRE project, all of South Orange County was served by one transmission substation in Talega, San Clemente. In the interest of infrastructure redundancy, it was critical to rebuild and improve the 100-year-old substation in San Juan Capistrano so it could handle the transmission load for South Orange County should the Talega substation face a power interruption.
New taller metal poles would replace the existing wooden transmission poles, but there would be fewer poles needed. Comm LAB went door-to-door visiting more than 1,500 neighbors along the corridor. We coordinated multiple public meetings and open houses, developed a website and social media channels, encouraged and helped to manage a third-party advocacy organization (Citizens for Safe and Reliable Power) and produced videos explaining the various facets of the proposed project. At the California Public Utilities Commission’s (CPUC) Environmental Impact Report hearings in San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente, more project supporters than opponents showed up. The project was approved unanimously by the CPUC and is currently under construction.