Airport Panel May Consider Solar Plant

The head of the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners said he wants his panel to consider permitting development of a major solar power plant on vacant airport-owned land in Palmdale.

Airport commission President Jerry Epstein said he will propose that airport officials consider allowing the world’s largest solar-energy producer to use as many as “a few thousand” acres of the nearly 18,000 acres of airport land in Palmdale.

The Westwood-based company, Luz International Ltd., made a presentation to airport officials last month asking for land on which to build a $1-billion solar-energy plant in Palmdale.

At that time Epstein and other airport officials said in interviews that they doubted the plan would be approved. But Epstein later said The Times’ report of the meeting, under the headline “Airport Officials Reject Proposal to Put Solar Plant on Palmdale Site,” left the incorrect impression that the commission had made a final decision against it.

Epstein said he will ask the board to consider the plan at its meeting next Wednesday.

Los Angeles airport officials have been saving the land, most of which is vacant, for a long-planned regional airport. But Epstein said Los Angeles, which now gets no solar power, also ought to consider opportunities to develop cleaner sources of energy.

“We have the technology. Why not use it?” said Epstein, who also heads a city-county energy commission. Luz has proposed a city-financed facility that could provide 10% of Los Angeles’ energy needs. The company already operates several solar plants in the Mojave Desert.