Solar From Nevada Indian Reservation to Help Power Los Angeles

After decades of getting electricity from faraway pollution-and-greenhouse-gas-spewing coal-fired power plants, Los Angeles is looking out of state for less toxic forms of energy.

An example: The city council this week approved [PDF] a 25-year power purchase agreement with K Road Moapa Solar for up to 250 megawatts of power from a solar power plant on tribal land of the Moapa Band of the Paiute, north of Las Vegas. The council also approved a second agreement for 210 megawatts of power from the Copper Mountain solar complex in Boulder City, NV.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has said it expects to get around 706,650 megawatt-hours of energy annually from the planned K Road photovoltaic solar operation beginning around 2015 – enough to power about 118,000 homes.

According to City Council documents [PDF], the LADWP will pay up to $64.8 million a year for the power, which by our rough calculation works out to about 9.2 cents per kilowatt-hour. Under the deal, LADWP will also purchase a 5.5-mile transmission line, at a cost of $18 million, to connect the power to its substation, and get an option to purchase the solar power plant.

LA now obtains a hefty portion of its power from big coal-fired plants in Arizona and Utah, but there is a direct coal angle to the Moapa PV development: The Moapa are hopeful that producing power from solar can eventually allow for the shuttering of the Reid Gardner power station that sits right in the middle of their community. That’s a hope U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) addressed in reacting to the L.A. City Council vote in favor of solar.

“Unlike the old, dirty technologies used at the nearby Reid-Gardner coal plant, this new solar project will not emit any hazardous emissions, wastes, or carbon pollution,” the senator said in a statement. “I have worked hard to make sure that Nevada tribes have new opportunities to flourish and I am confident that this clean energy project will provide a meaningful opportunity to improve the quality of life for the Moapa Paiutes and nearby communities.”

The plant, approved by the Obama administration in June, will go on 2,000 acres of leased tribal lands — about 3 percent of the tribe’s trust lands — while 12 acres of U.S. public land, overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, will be needed for the larger of two new transmission lines.

— Pete Danko

This post originally appeared at EarthTechling and was republished with permission.