L.A.’s massive new solar farm is cheap and impressive. More, please

Flying north from the City Hall helipad, it was hard to shake the feeling that Los Angeles never really ends.

Downtown skyscrapers and Dodger Stadium parking lots gave way to lush foothill suburbs before our helicopter rose thousands of feet, cresting the San Gabriels’ sharp peaks and trails. No sooner had we crossed the mountains than the depression marking the San Andreas Fault appeared — bordered, curiously, by rural homes, and also by the California Aqueduct, a thin blue line carrying much of L.A.’s drinking water from northern rivers.

Rotor blades spinning, we swept north along Highway 14 into the high desert — home to Edwards Air Force Base, a real estate scheme known as California City and, increasingly, solar and wind farms powering Los Angeles.

Other parts of Kern County host the state’s largest clusters of oil wells. But this is clean energy country.

The L.A. Department of Water and Power is buying energy from so many solar farms in this area, in fact, that my traveling companions — including DWP’s chief executive, Janisse Quiñones — had trouble figuring out which one they were here to show me. From the air, the facilities are hard to distinguish: Tetris-like expanses of black wafers tilting toward the sun, surrounded by scrubby desert, panels gleaming even on a cloudy November morning.

The DWP’s Eland solar and storage project, seen from the air.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Eventually, Quiñones and her colleagues spotted the right one. It’s called Eland, and when fully operational in the next few months, it’s expected to supply 7% of L.A.’s electricity — much of the power for a record-low price.

“We need 10 more projects like this,” Quiñones said.

Never a city to dream small, Los Angeles is targeting 98% climate-friendly electricity by decade’s end and 100% by 2035. Last year, the city had already reached 57% clean energy. With Eland, DWP is projecting 64% next year.

“This is our largest solar and battery project,” Quiñones said.

Janisse Quiñones, chief executive of the L.A. Department of Water and Power, tours the Eland solar and storage project on Nov. 25.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Soon the helicopter landed at California City’s tiny, run-down airport, where a rusty fuel tank reads: “Building for the future… Today!” In a strange way, it’s true. A master-planned city of half a million people overflowing from Los Angeles never panned out. But this place still represents the future — with lessons for the rest of the world.

So we packed into a van and started driving. The rows of solar panels felt endless.

“We’re not anywhere close to the end,” Nancy Sutley, L.A.’s deputy mayor for sustainability, said eventually.

If Eland were just a solar farm, it wouldn’t be such a big deal — no disrespect to 1.36 million photovoltaic panels spread across an area the size of East L.A.. But the lithium-ion battery banks are the most consequential part.

There are 172 Tesla Megapacks, housed in two rows of nondescript white storage containers. They don’t take up much space. But they soak up excess power generated by the 700-megawatt solar project during the day and can disburse as much as 300 megawatts for four hours after sunset, sending the electricity coursing down a series of wires to the movie studios, port complexes, hidden data centers and millions of homes that comprise L.A.

Battery banks at the Eland solar and storage project, seen from the air.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

The result is a solar farm that operates more like a coal or gas plant.

Already, Eland is paying dividends. It helped DWP keep Angelenos’ air conditioners powered during September’s record-breaking heat wave — the kind of dangerous weather made worse by fossil fueled climate change.

Even nearing winter, Eland adds value — for Los Angeles and its other customer, Glendale.

A few nights before our tour, Ashkan Nassiri, a DWP power system planning manager, was working at the utility’s downtown offices. At 7:30 p.m., he noticed that Eland’s batteries were sending 109 megawatts to the electric grid — enough energy to power 250,000 typical homes, if the production were sustained year-round.

This was in November, with half of the project not yet operating. Nassiri was awed.

“I just sat there watching for a minute or two, like — OK, great,” he said.

A few years ago, there were hardly any batteries in California. Now there are more than 13,000 megawatts, with 3,000 more slated for installation by year’s end, including small home batteries paired with rooftop solar.

There are 172 Tesla Megapacks at the Eland solar and storage project.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

But batteries alone won’t vanquish fossil fuels. They’re good at storing a few hours’ worth of energy, not so good at filling longer gaps in solar and wind generation, such as occasional stretches of cloudy, low-wind days. Building enough solar farms, wind turbines and battery banks to keep the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year would consume absurd amounts of land and cost exorbitant amounts of money, leading to higher electric bills.

Fortunately, DWP isn’t banking solely on batteries.

L.A.’s single largest power source is the Palo Verde nuclear plant west of Phoenix. Last year, the reactors supplied 14% of the city’s electricity — round-the-clock power that doesn’t spew planet-warming carbon dioxide.

Los Angeles also relies on wind power from New Mexico, Utah and the Pacific Northwest; 24/7 clean energy from geothermal plants in Nevada and Imperial County; and hydropower from Hoover Dam and the Owens Valley.

Two of L.A.’s most valuable tools are Castaic and Pyramid lakes, mountain reservoirs you might have driven past heading north from the city on Interstate 5. DWP operates them as “pumped storage,” using extra solar and wind energy to pump water uphill from Castaic to Pyramid. When L.A. needs extra power — typically after sundown — DWP releases water downhill to Castaic, using gravity to turn turbines and generate clean electricity.

The lesson?

“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” said David Hanson, senior assistant general manager for power.

The Palo Verde nuclear plant in Arizona’s Maricopa County, seen in 2007.

(Ross D. Franklin / Associated Press)

This is what every utility should be doing to fight the climate crisis: going big on solar and battery storage, while still investing in diversity — technological and geographic. If a wildfire knocks out power lines linking Los Angeles with New Mexico, the city can look east. If a dry winter limits hydropower production, DWP has other options.

In a chaotic world, options are good. Especially when you can’t just fire up a coal or gas plant.

Which isn’t to say L.A. is ditching fossil fuels — at least not yet.

The city will shut down its coal-fired Intermountain Power Plant outside Delta, Utah, next summer. But in the coal plant’s place, DWP is building new generators that will burn gas, mixed with small amounts of green hydrogen — a clean fuel made from water and renewable energy. The goal is to transition to only hydrogen over time.

DWP is planning a similar transition at four local gas plants. But some environmental activists have pushed back, noting that hydrogen combustion still produces harmful air pollution — an especially problematic reality at Valley Generating Station, located in a heavily polluted, largely Latino neighborhood. It’s also not clear how quickly still-nascent hydrogen technology will develop, which could leave L.A. stuck burning fossil gas indefinitely.

The L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Valley Generating Station in was built in 1953.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Hydrogen skeptics, including the Sierra Club, would prefer to see DWP replace local gas plants with batteries, like the ones at Eland. DWP officials, though, say building enough batteries to shoulder the load now carried by fossil gas — which supplies one-third of the city’s energy — would be phenomenally expensive. They also say it’s easier to keep the lights on with a few big generators that can fire up during the hottest hours each year.

“Losing power is a big deal, because people notice immediately,” Quiñones said.

High desert residents have no idea when L.A. loses power. But they do benefit from supplying the power.

During her 14 years as Kern County’s planning director, Lorelei Oviatt has helped create a renewable energy hub. Wind isn’t new; thousands of turbines have dotted the hills for decades. But the solar boom is more recent.

“There is no city in California that flips a switch and green Kern County electrons don’t come,” Oviatt said.

A worker installs photovoltaic panels at the Eland solar and storage project in California’s Kern County on Nov. 25.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

I spoke with Oviatt by phone the day after touring Eland. She explained how she works with solar developers to get projects approved as quickly as possible — a challenge in other parts of the West, where permitting can drag on for years due to conflicts involving endangered species habitat, rural landowner opposition and more.

Oviatt said she tries to steer developers away from federal public land, areas close to homes and the best wildlife habitat. Many of the solar projects supplying Los Angeles, for instance, are located on former alfalfa fields.

It’s a tricky balance, because sometimes the lowest-conflict lands make the most financial sense. A solar farm not far from Eland, for instance, recently stirred controversy when the developer began razing Joshua trees.

But California would have no chance of achieving its clean energy goals without Kern County. More than 150,000 acres of solar and wind farms have been built here. And locals are reaping rewards, through a continuous stream of good-paying construction jobs and per-acre payments from developers that fund government services.

“We’ve embraced it,” Oviatt said.

Workers install photovoltaic panels at the Eland solar and storage project on Nov. 25.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

I understood why. The previous day, I’d watched a crew of workers lift some of the final solar panels into place at Eland, setting them onto steel racks. There were 400 workers on site that day. They moved quickly, securing each panel within 30 seconds. The construction manager told me his 10,000 panels were being installed per day.

Stepping up to one of the panels, I slid my hand across the back. It felt like glass.

“The price we got on this project is unheard of,” Quiñones said.

Indeed, DWP lucked out a bit. When Los Angeles officials approved a $1.69-billion, 25-year contract with Eland’s Arizona-based developer, Arevon Energy, in late 2019, solar prices had never been lower. Then the pandemic hit, disrupting supply chains and sending prices inching up. Rising demand for clean energy also played a role.

DWP ended up accepting a slight price hike for the second half of Eland, to keep the project financially viable. But the developer stuck to $39.62 per megawatt-hour for the first half — a record low price for solar plus storage.

“We were able to weather the storm,” said Arevon’s chief executive, Kevin Smith.

The Eland solar and storage project, seen from the air.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

DWP deserves credit, too — and not just for driving a hard bargain at Eland. The utility offers some of the lowest electric rates of the state’s big utilities — far lower than Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric.

It’s no secret that DWP has a sordid history. From the shameful Owens Valley water grab to a vast web of electric lines built to bring coal power to L.A., the city’s far-reaching tentacles have usually done more harm than good.

But these days, DWP is a climate leader worth following.

The 100% clean power study that the utility commissioned from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory laid the technical foundation, giving then-Mayor Eric Garcetti the confidence to pledge that L.A. would reach 100% by 2035 — a decade ahead of California’s current target (which Gov. Gavin Newsom really needs to update).

DWP could do more to prioritize rooftop solar systems. And although I’m not sure how green hydrogen will work out, I’m encouraged that projects like Eland will cut down on the need for L.A. to fire up its gas plants — meaning less fuel for the deadly heat waves, fires, droughts, storms and floods getting worse with global warming.

Los Angeles can’t solve the climate crisis on its own. But what starts here doesn’t end here.

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