Airport Officials Reject Major Solar Energy Plant on Palmdale Site
Los Angeles airport authorities said Wednesday they are not interested in a proposal by the world’s largest producer of solar energy to build a major solar power plant on vacant land Los Angeles owns in Palmdale.
Luz International of Westwood proposed to the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners construction of a $1-billion plant on some of the 17,500 acres the Los Angeles Department of Airports owns in Palmdale. Luz already operates several large solar plants in nearby areas of the Mojave Desert.
The commissioners took no formal action on Luz’s proposal but airport officials said in interviews later that they have little interest in the concept. The airport board still hopes to use much of its mostly vacant land in Palmdale for construction of an airport someday.
“Right now, I think the sentiment is, a solar plant is not a revenue-producing thing and it could be located somewhere else,” said Jerry Epstein, president of the airport board, after the panel heard a presentation by a Luz representative Wednesday.
In recent months, Luz has been trying to persuade the city of Los Angeles to finance the development of a city-owned solar plant that could meet almost 14% of the city’s electrical needs. Los Angeles now gets none of its electricity from solar sources.
The company proposed a plant that would produce up to 500 megawatts of the city’s daily average electricity usage of about 3,500 megawatts. Such a plant could cost nearly $1 billion and require about 3,000 acres, a company spokesman said.
“We think it is valuable for the city. And we think it offers tremendous environmental advantages,” said Dennis Horgan, director of business development for Luz. He said solar energy can be a cost-effective alternative to oil and coal-fired plants that increase air pollution.
The company already operates solar plants in the Mojave Desert communities of Daggett, Kramer Junction and Harper Lake, selling the electricity they produce to Southern California Edison. The company’s newest plant in Harper Lake suffered an explosion and fire earlier this month.
Horgan said his company suggested the Palmdale site because it is already owned by the city, is largely undeveloped and has the sunny weather needed for a solar plant.
Airport officials said such a plant would interfere with plans for a future airport and do little to recoup the city’s investment of nearly $100 million in the land, mostly acquired in the 1970s.
Even if the Palmdale solar plant proposal goes nowhere, Luz has already garnered support from Mayor Tom Bradley for pursuing the concept of a solar plant somewhere, said Bradley aide John Stodder. Luz intends to submit a proposal later this year when the city Department of Water and Power solicits ideas for new energy sources, Horgan said.
Earlier this month, commercial air service resumed out of Palmdale after a five-year absence. The carrier, America West Airlines, flies out of the small Palmdale Air Terminal that Los Angeles built years ago, which uses neighboring Air Force runways. Los Angeles airport officials cannot say if or when the city might build a new airport on the thousands of acres it owns nearby.
