San Diego clean energy grant for nonprofits reaches a fourth year in 2026
San Diego Community Power, a Community Choice Aggregation agency, a public agency that local governments create to buy electricity for homes and businesses in their area instead of leaving that job only to the investor owned utility, has run a San Diego clean energy grant for nonprofits every year since 2023. San Diego Foundation manages the money alongside it, joined in 2024 by a third partner, Calpine Community Energy. The 2026 cycle opened applications February 2 and closed them March 6, offering more than 750,000 dollars to nonprofits working on clean energy in San Diego, 5 other cities and the unincorporated county around them. Winners had not been announced as of this writing, and the funders own timeline names late summer 2026.
How the grant works
The program gives money through 2 tracks. Track 1, called infrastructure, funds solar power, battery storage, electric vehicle charging equipment and hubs that can keep the power on for a community during an outage, called resilience hubs. Track 2, called programming, funds energy education, job training and outreach to young people. A single award is worth 25,000 to 150,000 dollars, depending on the track, and any group that wins must spend the money within 12 months. Only a tax exempt nonprofit organization can apply, and the project has to serve San Diego, Chula Vista, Encinitas, Imperial Beach, La Mesa, National City or the unincorporated county around them.
Funding has grown across most of its history
San Diego Foundation launched the program in 2023 as the Community Clean Energy Innovation Grant Program, offering 390,000 dollars to 10 nonprofits, with only San Diego Community Power and San Diego Foundation as partners. Calpine Community Energy joined as a third partner starting with the 2024 cycle, when the program name shortened to Community Clean Energy Grants and the total awarded grew to more than 1,200,000 dollars across 16 organizations. The 2025 cycle awarded 914,000 dollars to 14 organizations. Across those first 3 completed cycles, San Diego Foundation states the program has invested nearly 2.5 million dollars in local organizations. The 2026 offer of more than 750,000 dollars is what the current cycle made available, not a confirmed award, since winners had not been announced in any source checked for this article.
The 2023 figure comes from source 5, the 2024 figure from source 3 and the 2025 figure from source 4, each cycle own award announcement. Source 3 states the 2024 total as over 1,200,000 dollars, shown here as the bare number 1,200,000, the floor amount source 3 names, not an exact total to the dollar. The 2026 bar is the amount source 2 says was made available for the current cycle, not an award, since winners had not been announced in any source checked for this article.
Show the numbers
| 2023 | 390,000 |
| 2024 | 1,200,000 |
| 2025 | 914,000 |
| 2026 available | 750,000 |
The number of organizations funded has moved with the total each year, 10 groups in 2023, 16 in 2024 and 14 in 2025.
The 2023 count comes from source 5 and the 2024 count from source 3, each cycle own award announcement. The 2026 cycle is not shown, since winners had not been announced in any source checked for this article.
Show the numbers
| 2023 cycle | 10 |
| 2024 cycle | 16 |
| 2025 cycle | 14 |
What the grant is meant to do
Tara Hammond, founder and executive director of Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation, a nonprofit that won a grant in an earlier cycle, described what the money is meant to do.
These grants fund impactful projects that advance climate justice while delivering benefits that ripple throughout our community for generations.
Tara Hammond, founder and executive director of Hammond Climate Solutions Foundation, a past grant recipient. Source 2.
Winners of the 2026 cycle had not been announced in any source checked for this article, and the funders own timeline points to late summer 2026. For a San Diego area nonprofit weighing whether to apply next year, the track record so far is 4 straight cycles of funding, not a program that ran once and stopped.