January 11, 2012
January 11, 2012
Projects advance solar, wind energy development on public lands; Will deliver power for 112,500 homes, support over 600 jobs and generate millions in local tax revenue
Dept. of Interior
Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced the approval of two renewable energy projects that further advance President Obama’s initiative for a rapid and responsible move to utility-scale production of renewable energy. The projects – a solar plant in California and a wind farm in Oregon – will be built on private lands and will use power lines that cross public lands to connect to their respective power grids. When built, the projects will deliver 379 megawatts of power – or enough to power 112,500 homes – and help support over 600 jobs through construction and operations.
“Today’s projects are the 26th and 27th renewable energy projects that Interior has advanced in just the last two years,” Secretary Salazar said. “As we continue to move thoughtfully and quickly toward a clean energy future, these projects are strengthening local economies by generating good jobs and reliable power.”
In California, the Centinela Solar Energy Project is a 275-megawatt solar energy power plant that will connect via a 230-kilovolt transmission line to the existing San Diego Gas & Electric Imperial Valley Substation. The solar plant will be located on 2,067 acres of previously disturbed private land near El Centro, California. Interior approved the right-of-way for 19 acres for the power line on public land, and Imperial County gave a green-light to the solar power plant on December 27, 2011. The project would support at least 367 jobs, generate more than $30 million in tax revenue over the life of the project, and deliver enough electricity to power about 82,500 homes. For a fact sheet on the project, click here. Click here for a map.
In Oregon, the North Steens Transmission Line Project is a 44-mile, 230-kilovolt power line that will carry power from a proposed wind power project on the north side of Steens Mountain in Harney County to Harney Electric Cooperative’s existing electrical transmission grid. The wind project, proposed on private land near Diamond, Oregon, would generate 104 megawatts, enough to power about 30,000 homes. The project would support 235 jobs and generate $4.5 million in local tax revenue of the life of the project. For a fact sheet on the project, click here. Click here for a map.
Today’s announcements follow a series of solar, wind, geothermal and transmission facility approvals resulting from Interior’s renewable energy program that has focused the Department’s resources to prioritize and process existing applications in a coordinated, focused manner with full environmental analysis and public review.
In the past two years, Salazar has used this approach to approve 27 major renewable energy projects, or the transmission and roads associated with them, on public lands. When constructed, the projects are expected to create over 12,500 construction and operational jobs and produce nearly 6,600 megawatts of energy, enough to power 2.3 million American homes. These projects include 16 utility-scale solar energy facilities, four wind projects and seven geothermal plants.
Both the projects approved today underwent extensive environmental review and reflect strong efforts to mitigate potential environmental impacts, such as requiring funding for the acquisition of 80 acres of additional habitat for the flat-tailed horned lizard in California, and requirements that minimize audio and visual impacts from the Oregon project.
“Land stewardship is an important part of any energy project, including renewables,” said Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abbey, whose agency worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, state and local agencies, members of the environmental and conservation communities, interested stakeholders, and the companies to minimize the projects’ potential impacts to resources. “We use these lands now, but it is also important to make decisions that help ensure future generations get to use and benefit from these resources just as we do.”
Because the development on private land is connected to the federal Right of Way for the transmission lines and cannot proceed without Interior approval, the Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Assessment had to consider the impacts of the projects’ entire generation and transmission, including the components located on private lands.
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The Department Interior didn’t put much into calculating these renewable supply numbers. The 104 Megawatts of wind energy only will supply about 12,000 to 13,000 homes on a sustained basis. The average home in oregon uses about 2.5 Kilowatts around the clock, and so, one thousand homes consume 2.5 Megawatts around the clock. Further more, a typical wind generating plant only generates at about thirty percent of its capacity rating (in this case, 30 percent of 104 MW installed capacity). Doing the math, divide 2.5 into 104, and then multiply this quotient by the 30 percent wind generating capacity factor. Result: approximately 12,500 homes served, and not the 30,000 cited by the Department Interior.
As for the solar plant, the generating capacity is probably around 20 percent which is typical for southwest desert (if I recall correctly). (By comparison, capacity factors for roof top solar in the Willamette Valley are just above 10 percent.) So, doing the math for the Solar plant above goes like this: 275 divided by 2.5 KWa per Household times capacity factor of 20 percent, or approximately, 22,000 homes. Not the over exagerated estimate of 82,500 stated by the Department of Interior.
If you are going to compare renewables with other conventional types of generation, you need to discount for the sharply lower generating capacities of renewables.
For all the billions of dollars spent to date on Solar genration, Solar does not even make up 1 percent of the nation’s electric energy supply (Daniel Yergin, the Quest). Once more, the only way renewables work is government heavily subsidizing them relative to other forms of energy. Moreover, these renewables are not without negative environmental consequences. In the case of Solar, silicon needs to be manufactured with consequent emissions. In the case of Wind, the east of the Gorge is blighted with these huge whirling machines; and they may not be so good for birds, either.
The government is exagerating and grossly over selling renewables as a reasonable energy supply solution. Can we please have some balance in our energy policy? Natural gas is the way to go. No doubt about it. Fraccing can be adjusted to miminize water contamination risks. Fraccing is actually a newer techonology than wind generation, and so, why not give it also time to work out its bugs?