By David Zahniser and Phil Willon
November 25, 2008

Mayor Villaraigosa unveils solar plan for Los Angeles. More than 1,700 solar panels were installed on the roof of the Staples Center in downtown L.A. earlier this year. The mayor’s proposal aims to have solar power meet one-tenth of L.A.’s energy needs by 2020. But skeptics wonder if the plan will be cost-efficient and friendly to private enterprise. Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa unveiled an ambitious long-range plan Monday for securing enough solar power to meet one-tenth of the city’s energy needs by 2020, a move aimed at making L.A. a hub of the solar-energy industry.

Appearing at a South Los Angeles manufacturing plant where solar panels are made, Villaraigosa said the initiative will help the Department of Water and Power wean itself off of fossil fuels — natural gas and coal — as part of the effort to address global warming.

The plan calls for enough solar panels to produce 1,280 megawatts of power, a goal that would be reached through a combination of private and public generating facilities and the installation of solar panels on homes.

“Nobody’s contemplated that many megawatts for one city,” said Rhonda Mills, Southern California director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies and a solar power advocate.

The announcement Monday is the latest in a series of renewable energy initiatives touted by the mayor in recent weeks, including using redevelopment funds to lure “clean” technology companies and investing city pension dollars in environmentally friendly companies.

Shifting Los Angeles to cleaner fuels could buttress both Villaraigosa’s run for reelection and any future run for governor. If he runs in 2010, Villaraigosa would likely face state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown, an avid environmentalist.

“L.A. has everything it takes to make this [solar plan] work,” said Villaraigosa, standing alongside environmentalists, union leaders and City Council members. “We have the sun in abundancy. We have the space. We have the largest municipal utility in the country.”

Still, one DWP watchdog questioned the financial underpinnings of the plan

“There is one huge assumption here — that they’ll get these huge tax credits, volume discounts and economies of scale,” said Jack Humphreville, a neighborhood council member who has been pressing the DWP to appoint a ratepayer advocate. “I have serious questions about whether that is pie-in-the-sky or not.”

DWP General Manager and Chief Executive H. David Nahai said his agency will spend the next 90 days developing a financial analysis of the solar plan, including its effect on ratepayers.

Under the plan, the largest share of solar power, 500 megawatts, would come from generating facilities built by private-sector companies in the Mojave Desert.

An additional 380 megawatts would be achieved through smaller programs, including one that would help low-income residents add solar panels to their homes and another that would allow DWP customers to purchase shares of city-owned solar plants.

Voters will decide on another part of the mayor’s solar plan on March 3, at the same time that Villaraigosa seeks a second and final four-year term. That ballot measure would allow the DWP to install and own 400 megawatts of rooftop solar panels by 2014. Villaraigosa and the council have been criticized in recent weeks over that proposal, which was conceived by an organization with strong ties to the union that represents DWP employees.

Business leaders contend that the ballot measure was written by and for DWP employee unions and would lock out companies that specialize in rooftop solar panels.

Gary Toebben, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, said he is encouraged to see the mayor place a greater emphasis on private-sector solar initiatives. But he said there are unanswered questions about the solar ballot measure’s effect on electrical rates.

“We still have a concern that the cost of the ballot initiative has not been laid out,” he said.

Villaraigosa said the solar plan could lead to higher rates as soon as 2011. But City Council President Eric Garcetti noted that coal, one of the DWP’s cheapest — and most polluting — energy sources, will also become more expensive as Congress moves to impose a carbon tax.

“Coal is not going to be the same price that it is today,” he said.

We all a know the sun does not shine on us all equally. This is the reality that has long slowed the growth of solar power. Where you live in the country, or even in your city will vary considerably with the same array of photovoltaic solar panels. What matters is the precise amount of sunlight that hits your roof. While we all know that San Diego gets more sunny days than Seattle, what about one neighborhood of San San Diego compared to another? What about one block of Seattle compared to the next block? Kenneth Westrick, the CEO of the renewable mapping company 3Tier says “Without that knowledge, renewables can be a bit of a crap shoot.”

Thanks to companies like 3Tier and  other city sponsored programs like CH2M in San Francisco, the Solar and Wind Industry could benefit from better data. The engineering company CH2M Hill, in an an effort to resolve barriers to Solar Development, is now joining forces with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Internet solar maps of 25 American cities. With Google Earth technology to chart precise solar potential of neighborhoods, rooftop by rooftop, the company has just cpmpleted the mapping of all of San Francisco. Residents interested in Solar can simply now to enter their address and take a solar reading of their home address. According to Gavin Newsom, the city’s deep-green mayor says: “People in San Francisco think we don’t have any solar potential but the map shows we have a lot more sun than you’d believe.” To use or learn about this new program click on the San Francisco solar map website here: sf.solarmap.org. You will get a Google Earth view of the entire city. The site shows that CH2M Hill has already labeled all 925 existing solar electric systems throughout the city which include commercial sites, government sites, and also all of the residential sites. The site truly stands on it’s merits when you enter in any address in San Francisco as the Google Earth camera shifts to a rooftop view of the business or home with data on the size of the roof, the estimated solar energy potential, with the electricity that could be produced and the electric bill savings. Also estimated is the amount of carbon that can be saved per location. One other critical feature is the site’s abiulity to provide estimates of what it would cost you to convert — with the federal, state and city incentives factored in.

Johanna Partin says “It’s a one stop shop for solar power”. As San Francisco’s renewable energy program manger she makes the case that “If you can’t get solar power with the help of the CH2M Hill map, you’re just not trying very hard.”

Other companies are even going global in conducting such solar surveys. One to keep an eye on is Seattle-based 3Tier as they are steadily mapping the solar, wind and hydro power potential of the entire planet. They call this their Remapping the World Initiative. They offer utilities and businesses to use the 3Tier website to research the best locations for wind power projects, and offer the opprotunity for ordinary citizens to check the solar potential of their home address. As this is just the beginning of these solar and wind targeted research programs we are yet to see how much all will be helped in an energy hungry world. If San Francisco is any indication, and as the focus shifts from fossil fuels to renewable options, the data will make many decisions, and savings, easy.

San Francisco already hosts hardware producing 6.5mW of solar power. Most of the power is from a relatively small number of big commercial and public / city projects. Governor Newsom has goals for 31mW of solar by 2012, which is part part of a bigger plan to provide 50mW of total renewable energy by the same year including wind, hydro, etc. Part of Newsom’s task is in identifying the 1,500 business that have the biggest solar potential in San Francisco. Those who qualify can earn a special incentive if they employ graduates of San Francisco’s workforce training program, which is part of the mayor’s push for green jobs. “Everyone’s talking about green jobs, but to say is not to do,’ he says. “We want to actually do this.’

The imperative shift to renewable energy, especially solar and wind, won’t happen on it’s own — it needs front leading government policies and state of the art technological innovations. One example of this is solar mapping.