Los Angeles to close 3 power plants in aggressive move toward green energy – By Martin Wisckol (Orange County Register) / Feb 12 2019
The Harbor Generating Station in Wilmington is one of three coastal power plants owned by the Los Angeles Deparment of Water and Power. All three would be shut down within the next decade according to a plan announced Feb. 12, 2019. (Courtesy L.A. Dept. of Water and Power)
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power will be shuttering its three gas-fired coastal power plants over the next decade, a key step in the city’s aspiration to become the nation’s first metropolis to run entirely on renewable energy.
Its plants in Long Beach, Wilmington and Playa del Rey had been slated for new, more efficient units run on natural gas. That would have extended the life of the plants until 2045, the state’s target for eliminating fossil-fuels as a source for electricity.
But Mayor Eric Garcetti made a formal announcement Tuesday that $5 billion in costs associated with new gas-fired units would be used instead to accelerate the transition to renewable energy, part of a three-pronged plan that also calls for emission-free vehicles and buildings in the city.
“This is the beginning of the end of natural gas for this city,” Garcetti said at the event in front of DWP headquarters, where he was joined by by dozens of environmentalists and several key city officials. “This is what the Green New Deal looks like on the local level.”
He touted the move by the nation’s largest municipal utility as historic, claiming a responsibility to stem climate change and to reduce pollution in the low-income neighborhoods where two city plants are located.
He also pointed to 29,000 green jobs the city has added over the past 5 1/2 years, saying the move away from natural gas would further increase that workforce.
DWP consultants had recommended proceeding with new gas-fired units to ensure energy availability. Others, including the Van Nuys-based Valley Industry and Commerce Association, have predicted the aggressive transition to green energy would raise electric bills.
Without mentioning the critics, Garcetti appeared to address those concerns.
“We’re focusing our energies to make sure we have 100-percent renewable energy, and a reliable and affordable grid for the future,” Garcetti said.
Shrinking role of gas
Contributing to the fate of coastal power plants, which are cooled by water piped in from the ocean, is a 2010 state policy phasing out the ocean-cooled technology because it kills small marine life. That affects seven coastal power plants in Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Privately operated plants in El Segundo, Long Beach and Huntington Beach have either replaced or are in the process of replacing units with more efficient technology that doesn’t use ocean water.
A fourth private plant, in Redondo Beach, is scheduled to close by the end of 2020.
The DWP plants in Long Beach, Wilmington and Playa del Rey had also been scheduled for replacement units, but that plan was put on hold in 2017 so the department could study clean-energy alternatives and assess how quickly the city could reduce natural-gas use.
Statewide trends show a steady reduction in the use of natural gas, indicating a shrinking need for gas-fired plants. Solar and wind energy are the fastest growing sectors for renewable energy.
The state electrical grid drew 40 percent of its energy from natural gas in 2015. That was down to 28 percent by 2017, according to Steven Greenlee, spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which coordinates sources responsible for about 85-percent of the state’s energy.
In 2017, DWP was getting 31 percent of its energy from natural gas — and 18 percent from a coal-burning plant in Utah. Statewide, just 4 percent of energy came from coal.
The Utah coal plant is expected to shut down by 2025, when it will be replaced by a gas plant at the same location. DWP is expected to get energy from the gas-fired operation there as well as continue to get energy from a gas-fired plant in Sun Valley.
Meanwhile, DWP’s Playa del Rey plant is now scheduled to close in 2024 and its other two coastal plants are slated for 2029 shutdowns.
Angela Johnson Meszaros of Earthjustice, which has pushed for the closure of the city’s gas-fired plants, called Tuesday’s announcement “an important milestone.”
“But it’s not the end of the story,” she said. “A lot remains to be done.”
Cost concerns
Stuart Waldman of the Valley Industry and Commerce Association, a business advocacy group in the San Fernando Valley, called Garcetti’s plan, ” a shortsighted and expensive experiment.” He questioned both the reliability and cost involved.
While wind and solar energy are virtually free once the apparatus are built, there are gaps when there is no wind or sun — gaps filled mostly by gas-fired plants currently.
Meszaros pointed out that the price of storage batteries for wind and solar energy have been dropping steadily, making that technology increasingly viable.
She also pointed out that past power outages have not been because of inadequate energy but because of technical glitches “like a squirrel in the transmission line or someone crashing into a transformer.”
Paul Krekorian, one of four Los Angeles City Council members to speak at Tuesday’s announcement, acknowledged that there were details to be worked out but expressed confidence in the city’s plan.
He compared the endeavor to President John F. Kennedy’s call in 1961 to put a man on the moon at a time when U.S. technology was only proven able to put a man into space for just 15 minutes.
“What the mayor has done is throw down a gauntlet,” Kerkorian said. “There’s a lot of hard work to be done.”
