As our state has suffered through a summer of record-breaking heat waves, blackouts and wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom has rightly pegged what’s principally behind these challenges: “If you are in denial about climate change,” he said recently, “come to California.”
After South Australia’s largest water and sewerage service supplier announced in January that it was planning to invest more than $300 million in solar and energy storage in 2020, perhaps SA Water could’ve checked its ambitions when the Covid-19 pandemic reared its elongated neck. However, SA Water is proving that it can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.
Just outside Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, a year-round, mineral-rich spring turns the Little Colorado River a vivid turquoise. This final stretch, about 10 miles from the river’s confluence with its larger relative, is one of the West’s spectacular waterways, with bright water flowing below steep red-rock cliffs. But the view will change dramatically if a Phoenix-based company builds a proposed hydropower project.
For a long time, there were two big knocks against solar power: It’s expensive, and it can’t keep the lights on after sundown.
A contract approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power shows how much that reality has changed.
Under the 25-year deal with developer 8minute Solar Energy, the city would buy electricity from a sprawling complex of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries in the Mojave Desert of eastern Kern County, about two hours north of Los Angeles. The Eland project would meet 6% to 7% of L.A.’s annual electricity needs and would be capable of pumping clean energy into the grid for four hours each night.
The University of San Diego dedicated on Wednesday the second free-standing solar and wind energy tower installed on its campus by a local startup.
California set two renewable energy records last week: the most solar power ever flowing on the state’s main electric grid, and the most solar power ever taken offline because it wasn’t needed. There’s no contradiction: As California utilities buy more and more solar power as part of the state’s quest to confront climate change, supply and demand are increasingly out of sync. The state’s fleet of solar farms and rooftop panels frequently generate more electricity than Californians use during the middle of the day — a phenomenon that has sent lawmakers and some climate advocates scrambling to find ways to save the extra sunlight rather than let it go to waste.
The Water News Network is San Diego County’s source for water news and information.
