Board Accelerates Green Energy Goal

Moving on one of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s campaign promises, the board he appointed to oversee the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power pressed agency managers on Tuesday to accelerate the transfer to renewable energy such as wind, solar and geothermal power so that it would make up 20% of the electricity sold by 2010.

The City Council had previously set a goal of reaching 20% by 2017, but a majority of the board members appointed by Villaraigosa said during a meeting Tuesday that that goal is not good enough.

“We’d like to be more ambitious than 2017,” board member H. David Nahai said. “It is the desire of the commission and the mayor to accelerate that process.”

Some council members and agency officials questioned whether that more ambitious goal is achievable.

A report to the board on Tuesday indicated that 3% to 5% of the agency’s energy sales come from renewable resources, the higher figure if dams are included, so it would have to expand that by at least three times in five years to reach the more ambitious goal.

“Absent a magic wand, they are not going to get to 20% by 2010,” said Councilman Tony Cardenas, chairman of the council committee that oversees the DWP.

Assistant General Manager Henry Martinez told the board during a workshop on the issue Tuesday that any accelerated move to green power must take into account the reliability of the new source and its cost.

An accelerated plan would require a major investment in new power systems, at a time when the agency’s existing plants can handle existing demand.

Cardenas said many of the geothermal and wind resources are concentrated elsewhere in the state, and it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build transmission systems to bring that power to Los Angeles.

The nuclear and coal power that make up 63% of the DWP’s electricity generation cost a fraction of solar, fuel cell and geothermal power, Martinez told the board.

“How much financial burden do you put on the customer?” he asked.

The manager’s comment drew a quick challenge from board member Nick Patsaouras, who said the agency must pave the way for other utilities, bringing down the cost for everyone.

“I don’t want to hear that renewables are going to cost more. We have to say to the world, here is the path,” Patsaouras said.

Board member Mary Nichols said the state is already looking at accelerating the move to renewables by private utilities, so others may beat the DWP to the mayor’s goal.

The department’s Pine Tree Wind Project, scheduled to be completed in March 2007, would add to the renewable portfolio, but the agency disclosed Tuesday that it plans to nearly triple the amount of wind power it generates with other projects, possibly in the mountain ranges to the east.

It also is looking at significant new biomass projects, and is in talks with Southern California Edison to build new transmission lines to Imperial County to tap its vast geothermal fields.

Board members said that though some renewable sources are more expensive than coal and nuclear power, all but fuel cells are cheaper than using natural gas, which is continuing to climb in price and makes up about 29% of the power generated by the DWP.

“There really are options,” Nichols said, agreeing to set another meeting in three weeks to begin refining the accelerated plan.

Meanwhile, the DWP received some good news about one of its power sources when the operators of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station told the city that it hopes to be back online and generating power for Los Angeles by the end of the week.

The plant was shut down to determine whether an emergency cooling system was sufficient.