Los Angeles reaches 20% renewable energy goal
Wind power comprised nearly 50% of all LADWP’s renewable energy in 2010
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) has celebrated providing 20% of the city’s power using renewable energy sources.
The utility actually delivered 19.7% of power from renewable energy sources in 2010, as it will report to the California Energy Commission, which uses a standard process that rounds up the figure to the closest percentage.
The milestone was achieved through a combination of major projects and power agreements made in the last five years, the municipal utility said yesterday.
In 2005, the LADWP made a commitment to increase the utility’s use of clean, green renewable energy from 5% to 20% by the year 2010.
This amount of renewable power provided to customers — 4,500 gigawatt-hours (GWh) — is equivalent to annually removing 750,000 homes from the power grid, preventing 2.5 million metric tons of CO2 emissions, or removing nearly to 490,000 cars from the road.
In June 2009, LADWP began full operation of the Pine Tree Wind Power Plant — the nation’s largest wind farm owned by a municipal utility, in the Tehachapi Mountains. Wind power comprised nearly 50% of all LADWP’s renewable energy in 2010 with small hydro-electric contributing 30%, geothermal/biofuels, 22%, and solar, 1%.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said: “When I became Mayor, I set a goal to generate 20% of the City’s power from renewable energy sources by 2010 and I am proud to say that we have achieved that goal
“We went from worst to first and quadrupled our renewable energy portfolio in a few short years while also keeping our rates lower than other major utilities. Today’s announcement illustrates that the DWP is a national leader in cost-effective, environmentally responsible and reliable energy,” added the Mayor.
Emissions
As well as achieving 20% renewable energy in 2010, LADWP has reduced its carbon emissions to 22% below 1990 levels through a combination of expanding renewable energy; replacing old generators with efficient and ultra-clean power plants; and promoting energy efficiency among its customers.
Since 2006, LADWP customers have saved enough energy to remove 343,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions from our air each year. This equates to removing 66,000 cars from the road annually. Currently 3% of the City’s total power use is offset by energy efficiency, and LADWP expects to save an additional 7% through energy efficiency by 2020.
Meanwhile, LADWP is currently weaning itself off coal power, and in 2010 only 39% of its power portfolio came from the fossil fuel.
The utility is in the process of divesting of the Navajo Generating Station in Arizona by 2014, which will reduce carbon emissions by an additional 26%, it said.
Moving forward, LADWP said it will continue to develop new wind and solar projects close to existing transmission lines and other infrastructure. This includes local in-basin solar and a feed-in tariff program which would allow private parties to sell power to LADWP for distribution on the grid.
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Wind power comprised nearly 50% of all LADWP’s renewable energy in 2010
This is the sort of good news that must be shouted from the mountaintops of Appalachia (while there are still mountaintops there)…and run head to head against other energy sector news stories that have come out in recent weeks such as these three stories:
Piedmont Energy’s announcement of investing $3 Billion for a new gas/coal plant, touted as being more efficient and cleaner than older powerplants, but also ignoring the gas fracking issues for gas, mountaintop removal, and the same old risks of mining that have always been part of the industry.
The recent tragedy of loss of life at a Massey Coal Mine, which is actually the second accident in a Massey Mine since April 2010 (in less than one year) resulting in a total loss of life of about 50 souls. This horrible news coming from a company that posted a 2007 report on Wikepedia praising themselves for their safety record by comparing their “non-fatal safety record” as nearly even to the workplace safety record of the “retail industry” in our country.
Also, in less than a year of prior bad news, BP was just granted within the last few days, “permitting to drill for oil offshore in the Arctic.”
The record of the fossil fuel sector in the last few weeks and months is status quo for these fuel sources for more than 100 years. Chevron is accused of massive pollution of the Amazon, Exxon had a really bad day at the office in Prince William Sound Alaska.
In the 1970′s coal miners went on strike for safer working conditions after a few dozen miners where killed in an explosion, and the mine owner, Duke Energy refused to negotiate for more than a year, and only came to the table after one of their thugs shot and killed a miner on the picket line.
Pete Seeger wrote a song about a similiar situation that occurred in the 1900′s when dozens of miners striking for safer working conditions were murdered and thrown into a hole.
It is the very definition of “irony” that the employers in the fossil fuel sector tell their employees that the EPA, the Dems, the liberals, and the commies don’t care about them. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality check is that the EPA, Dems, liberals, and commies care about everybody.
In fact, if you step back to see the whole picture, the Republicans, right wingers, and Libertarians (although some doubt the latter)also care about everybody. So why the impasse? Why make the employees and the families in the fossil fuel sector the scapegoats for the status quo? It’s not the economy, or climate change, however both are on our shoulders poised and ready to slash our throats…. it is our food supply, which at this moment depends on fossil fuels in order to be harvested, transported, and refridgerated.
The ugly truth is that our leaders are paralyzed with fear, of disrupting our food supply, their hands could be frozen on the steering wheel until we all crash and climate change does us all in. It is horribly unfair to tell coal miners, all other fossil fuel employees, and their families that their own brothers, sisters, and government don’t care about them. They deserve the best jobs in the green energy sector nationwide.
The news of the success of the LADWP of going from 5% to 20% renewable in 5 years must be shared. It will give people hope that this is not the end, rather that this is a whole new beginning for mankind. LADWP’s recent success is more than applaudable. If we all work together we can even do much better than that, and on a global scale. Other people in other countries want the same future and same survivability that we all do.