Edison's rooftop solar project powers up

Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times

Solar panels atop ProLogis’ warehouse in Fontana can power about 1,300 homes. The building is the first of 150 that Edison hopes to outfit with panels.

The utility's ratepayer-financed plan to outfit 150 buildings with the panels is cheered by business owners but criticized by consumer activists.

By Marla Dickerson 
December 2, 2008

Southern California Edison on Monday unveiled its newest power plant: 33,700 solar panels atop a warehouse in Fontana that will feed green energy directly into the grid.

It's the first piece of what the utility says could become the largest rooftop solar installation in the world, a swath of photovoltaic panels spanning two square miles.

The 600,000-square-foot warehouse rooftop, owned by logistics firm ProLogis Inc., is the first of 150 commercial buildings that Edison is looking to outfit with solar panels over the next five years. Collectively, solar panels on all those roofs would provide 250 megawatts of electricity, enough by Edison's reckoning to power more than 160,000 homes when the sun is shining.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand to flip a mock switch on the 2-megawatt Fontana system, which cost $10 million and can light about 1,300 homes. 

"I am a fanatic about renewable energy, and I have been trying to push the power companies . . . to create more," said Schwarzenegger, who urged Edison to move even faster on its proposed plan. 

If approved by state regulators, Edison's photovoltaic project would be the largest ever attempted by a U.S. utility; 250 megawatts roughly equals the capacity of all the solar panels manufactured in the United States last year. 

The massive size reflects the pressure California's investor-owned power companies are under to meet state mandates requiring them to boost the use of clean energy. It also underscores an evolution in solar financing. Rather than pay for their own panels, companies such as ProLogis are increasingly leasing out their roofs to utilities or striking long-term power contracts with third parties, which own, install and maintain the panels.

The approach is a hit with business owners who are finding their roofs to be unexpectedly valuable real estate. Urban solar is also popular with environmentalists because it can be linked to existing transmission lines and it transforms barren industrial space into platforms for clean power.

"This is exactly what all the energy companies should be doing," said Terry Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council. She said the solution to global warming "is right there on the roof."

But not everyone is enamored of Edison's plan. The Rosemead-based utility, a subsidiary of Edison International, wants its customers to pick up the nearly $1-billion tab for the proposed 150-roof project.

Consumer activists object. They say Edison should be looking to cheaper sources of renewable power, such as large solar and wind farms and geothermal plants. They contend that Edison International shareholders, not utility ratepayers, should finance the company's huge bet on photovoltaic rooftop solar, one of the most expensive forms of clean energy.

Edison used so-called thin-film panels on its first rooftop project. Supplied by Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar Inc., that technology is significantly cheaper than traditional silicon-based solar cells. Still, Edison estimates that electricity from the Fontana facility costs about 27 cents a kilowatt hour, compared with an average of 8 cents a kilowatt hour from conventional generation.

"This is not the most cost-effective renewable they could invest in," said Sepideh Khosrowjah, policy advisor for the Division of Ratepayer Advocates of the California Public Utilities Commission. The independent advocacy operation has asked the commission to reject the ratepayer-financed plan. Others fear that Edison would drive up the cost of solar panels by gobbling a limited supply and that the utility would have an unfair advantage over private-sector solar providers, which don't have a captive group of ratepayers to fund their operations.

"This is a solar monopoly that will eliminate its competition," said Michael Boyd, president of the nonprofit Californians for Renewable Energy Inc., in a filing with utility regulators.

Edison executives said their entry into the market would help to lower solar panel prices for everyone because of economies of scale. The company's big orders would help manufacturers improve designs, increase efficiency and ultimately cut prices, said Ted Craver, chief executive of Edison International.

Edison is complementing, not competing, he said, with the private-sector firms that are thriving under California's existing Million Solar Roofs Initiative. That program provides hefty state incentives to homeowners and businesses that install systems less than 1 megawatt in size. 

Craver said Edison's photovoltaic project aimed to install systems ranging from 1 megawatt to 2 megawatts on commercial rooftops.

"It fills a gap," Craver said.

California law requires Edison, PG&E Corp.'s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and Sempra Energy's San Diego Gas & Electric Co. to procure at least 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. Schwarzenegger wants to boost that minimum to 33% by 2020. Edison is currently at 16%.

Edison already is the nation's largest purchaser of solar power with 354 megawatts under contract. Much of that comes from large-scale solar projects located in remote desert areas, which take years to permit and build.

Craver said Edison wanted to add urban rooftop solar to the mix because it can be rolled out rapidly, getting more clean megawatts online sooner. The Fontana project was completed in a few months.

Edison on Monday announced its second rooftop project atop a 458,000-square-foot industrial building in Chino that is slated for completion in early 2009. Craver said it would probably be Edison's last if the state Public Utilities Commission didn't approve its proposal.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sunroof2-2008dec02,0,3036433.story

City wants new energy plant built near airport, but aviation expertsand others say that could have disastrous consequences

By Michael Burge

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 23, 2008

The city of Carlsbad's fight to shift a proposed power plant away from the coast, where the owner wants to build it, to eastern Carlsbad faces a serious obstacle: airplanes.

CHARLIE NEUMAN / Union-Tribune With the Encina Power Station's 400-foot-tall smokestack visible about four miles away, a small private plane came in for a landing at McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad. Hot exhaust from smokestacks at a power plant proposed for a site near the airport could cause turbulence for planes landing there.

The city's favored site, the Carlsbad Oaks North industrial park in eastern Carlsbad, is within a mile and a half of McClellan-Palomar Airport's runway, posing potential trouble for air navigation. And one of Carlsbad's backup sites, the city's police and fire safety center, is even closer.

Building a power plant near an airport can be dangerous because the stacks would stand 140 feet tall, creating a physical and visual hazard for aircraft. Also, hot exhaust emanating from the stacks could cause turbulence for planes landing at the airport.

“Both of those areas are in the arrival area of light aircraft, where they're descending,” said Ron Cozad, an attorney and regional vice president of the California Pilots Association. “That would be disastrous. It couldn't be done.”

Graphic: Power plant sites

There have been 10 accidents since 2000 involving aircraft taking off or landing at McClellan-Palomar Airport, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Five were fatal crashes that killed a total of 13 people, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said.

The National Transportation Safety Board has determined probable causes in six of the 10 accidents. All were the result of pilot error, and weather was a factor in three, Gregor said.

NRG Energy, which owns and operates the 54-year-old, oceanfront Encina Power Station, has applied to the California Energy Commission to build a 540-megawatt plant on its coastal property west of Interstate 5 on the south shore of Agua Hedionda Lagoon. It hopes to have the plant operating by 2011.

The city wants any power plant moved off the coast to an inland location in Carlsbad.

“It all comes down to we don't think the coastline is an appropriate site,” said Joe Garuba, the city's municipal projects manager. “All we're trying to do is point out there's a whole lot of sites that are better than the coast.”

City officials have said the land, with an unobstructed view of the Pacific Ocean, is prime property for a hotel and other developments that would serve the public.

The California Energy Commission – not the city – has authority over issuing permits for power plants. The city can question NRG's data and comment during the application process.

City officials offered two alternative sites – Carlsbad Oaks North and Maerkle Reservoir in the city's northeast – but have since said the reservoir is off the table because it is too close to the Ocean Hills senior community in Oceanside.

Carlsbad Oaks North is a 400-acre business park north of Faraday Avenue and west of Melrose Avenue that is seeking tenants.  NRG has rejected both sites for various reasons.

Tim Hemig, NRG's project manager for the proposed power plant, says the business park falls within a proposed safety zone for the airport where development is limited. The purpose of the zone is to ensure that structures around an airport don't pose hazards to airplanes and people on the ground.  “There's a black-and-white restriction that says no power plant can be sited in (the safety zone),” Hemig said.

Sandi Sawa, manager of airport planning for the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority, which is establishing safety zones around airports, said McClellan-Palomar's zone has not been adopted, so it is not black and white.  “Under current plans, there's no reason a power plant couldn't be allowed there,” Sawa said.

A power plant would have to be approved by the FAA and the California Department of Transportation's aeronautics division, she said.  Gregor said developers hoping to build near airports must apply to the FAA, which determines whether a structure's height would interfere with air navigation.

The FAA has no authority to block developments, but its recommendation carries weight with other agencies that can, he said.  Caltrans' aeronautics division has such authority.  “We may look at it and suggest against it ... if we think it creates a hazard,” said Phillip Miller of Caltrans' aeronautics division.  Miller said the agency would comment on the proposal to the California Energy Commission.

When Caltrans declared that a 180-foot building under construction in Kearny Mesa endangered airplanes flying into Montgomery Field, San Diego City Attorney Michael Aguirre used that as ammunition to force the developer, Sunroad Enterprises, to shave 20 feet off the building's height last year.

NRG points to the California Energy Commission's recent rejection of a proposed power plant in the San Francisco Bay Area, called Eastshore Energy Center, as an example of why it doesn't want to pursue the Carlsbad Oaks North location.  The commission found that hot exhaust from the proposed plant would have been hazardous to planes landing at nearby Hayward Executive Airport.

Carol Gold, vice president of the California Pilots Association, said that because of the heavy air traffic around Hayward – Oakland International Airport is to the north and San Francisco International to the west – planes have limited airspace. Any attempt to go around the power plant would have forced them into another airport's traffic pattern.  “You can't avoid it by flying above,” Gold said.

Hemig said NRG has determined that a plume from its power plant could go as high as 1,700 feet, and planes fly at a lower altitude near the Carlsbad Oaks North industrial park, creating a hazard.  Garuba said the energy commission's Eastshore Energy Center ruling doesn't apply to Carlsbad.  He said another, larger power plant was approved within a mile of Eastshore and that pilots had to avoid the plant. That left no other space for airplanes to go if Eastshore was built.  “They're boxed in,” which is not the case with McClellan-Palomar Airport, Garuba said.

Peter Drinkwater, director of airports for San Diego County, which owns and operates McClellan-Palomar, said a new power plant near the airport would require close scrutiny.  “One thing for certain is if something gets built and it affects the flight path, then one thing that can mitigate (it) is a change in the flight path or pattern, or the approaches,” Drinkwater said. “But those things obviously cause other problems.”

Some residents who live near the airport complain that planes fly over their homes, and the airport tells pilots to avoid residences to minimize the noise. Many residents say that doesn't take care of the problem.  Garuba said the city contacted the FAA this year about aviation issues regarding a proposed power plant.  “That was one of the first things we did, and ruled out stuff” based on that contact, Garuba said.  He said there is enough space around Carlsbad Oaks North to mitigate the possible impacts.

Cozad, of the pilots association, said he doesn't see how the city's chosen site can get off the ground.  “This is a very scary issue,” he said. “You just don't put a power plant at the arrival end of an airport.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081123-9999-lz1mc23power.html

Financial Post

Walking the green walk

If there's a municipal job that marries a city's green talk and its green action, it's that of Chicago's Chief Environmental Officer.

LINDA GYULAI, The Gazette Published: Saturday, November 29, 2008

JOHN KENNEY GAZETTE FILE PHOTOPerformance artists Christine Brault (left) and Thérèse Chabot tour the green roof on the Côte des Neiges Maison de la culture with Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay in June 2007, when the garden officially ...

As CEO of the third largest city in the United States, Sadhu Johnston is responsible for implementing Mayor Richard M. Daley's environmental initiatives across city government.

"My role is to bring the department of environment into each department," Johnston, who is also the mayor's deputy chief of staff, has said of his job.

Similarly, in Calgary, the role of spurring environmental action across city government belongs to Dave Day, the city's director of environmental and safety management.

Day leads a team of 60 people who oversee green programs and targets for municipal departments under the city's internationally-certified environmental management system.

"I'm the environmental champion for the city," Day says.

Unlike Chicago and Calgary, Montreal has no civil servant perched atop the municipal bureaucracy making sure the green tint runs to its core.  So while Montreal has a new 20-year transportation plan aimed at boosting public transit and decreasing car use, it's moving ahead with a redesign of Notre Dame St. E. that's expected to increase the number of cars and trucks using it.

And while the city has raised its annual contribution to bus and métro service by 40 per cent, or $95 million, since 2002 to woo riders, it has hit riders with the other hand by hiking the price of a monthly transit pass by 40 per cent, or $20, in the same period.

To its credit, Montreal has developed green bylaws restricting pesticides and car idling, built a park over a former landfill in St. Michel and has become a leader in soil decontamination.  But the city and its 19 boroughs also engage in contradictory actions, critics say, leading them to conclude that Montreal is rudderless on the eco wave.

What if someone in Montreal's community of 23,000 civil servants were a designated eco chief, forcing Montreal to improve its green record? Imagine the progress that could be made in transit, building, pollution and waste management.  "We have lots of policies in Montreal, but it's not all coherent with what the city is doing," André Porlier, executive director of the Conseil régional de l'environnement de Montréal, said.

For Porlier, the city's most maddening contradiction is on green-space protection.  On the one hand, Montreal has a four-year-old policy for preserving natural habitats, which targets protecting six per cent of the island's land mass and two per cent of waterways.  On the other hand, Rivière des Prairies-Pointe aux Trembles borough voted last year to build a borough office and cultural centre in René Masson Park, an area comprised of marshland, a creek, mature trees and fields. Ironically, construction will incorporate Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) guidelines.

And Côte des Neiges-Notre Dame de Grâce voted last year to raze several hundred square-metres of green space to replace an outdoor pool in Benny Park with a new LEED-standard indoor sports and community centre.

CRE-Montréal helped the city prepare its 2005 sustainable development plan, and devised 20 indicators to help a cell of five civil servants in the city's environment department track progress by the city and its 160 business and community "partners" on the plan's 36 goals.  But nothing requires the city or boroughs to attain those goals, Porlier said with frustration in his voice. "You need a concerted effort, and we don't have that right now in Montreal."  

Elsewhere, many cities have internalized the need to do, and not just tell others to do.  Cities are combining environmental sustainability with economic development, compelling their employees to take environmental considerations into account when making decisions, whether it's about a local park or a bid to redevelop a neighbourhood, and weighing what they can do to reduce their use of fossil fuels and conserve energy.

This urgent change is economically advantageous as well as the right thing to do.  Indeed, a look at several cities that are on the environmental forefront reveals they've done it by adopting an environmental management system, or EMS.

Under EMS, a city develops an environmental plan linked to organizational goals for each municipal department. A person or group in the civil service is put in charge of developing programs and targets, measuring progress and correcting shortcomings. Those eco chiefs report directly to the mayor or council.

Some, such as Calgary, have achieved ISO 14001 certification, the EMS standard of the International Organization for Standardization.  Day, who became Calgary's first environmental director five years ago, has a network of environmental coordinators working within departments to apply programs and targets and to pass the units' results back to Day.

He, in turn, reports regularly to administrative directors on the city's environmental performance and reports directly to city council four times a year.  City council sets policy, and Day and his team figure out how to make it happen.

Say the council decides to target improving air quality.  "What are the methods we would use to carry that policy out?" Day said.  "Are we going to reduce our use of hydrocarbons, (or) are we going to work with people to increase public transit?"

Each of 12 units working within the city's seven departments have to come up with ways to support the methods, and Day then develops a plan and measurement criteria. Department directors are accountable for their units' results.  If targets aren't met, the units have to explain why and revise their plan accordingly, Day said.

As required by ISO 14001 standards, Calgary contracts external firms specialized in evaluating such systems to audit each unit's management system. Calgary also has an internal whistle-blower line for staff. And it has an internal investigation process for policy breaches.

"Most international systems for effective management for things like environmental risk and safety are not meant to be punitive," Day said.  "They're meant more to keep you on the ball." 

Sydney, Australia, also has an environmental management system compliant with ISO 14001, as does Scottsdale, AZ. And Aalborg, Denmark, where the Charter of European Cities and Towns Towards Sustainability was signed in 1994, is ISO 14001 compliant and also adheres to a voluntary environmental management standard set by the European Union.

In Seattle, WA, which launched EMS in 1999, the Office of Sustainability and Environment reports directly to the mayor's office.  City departments in Seattle also sign an accountability agreement with the mayor's office, in which they undertake to achieve the goals of the city's 2006 Environmental Action Agenda on climate change, as well as goals in other programs related to redeveloping neighbourhoods and building new infrastructure.

San Jose, CA, certified ISO 14001 in 2006, has a sustainability office with a staff of about 12. It, too, has a direct pipeline into the mayor's office.

And when San Jose adopted a 15-year Green Vision in 2007 to turn the city into a world hub of "clean technology" innovation, it set up an implementation committee of civil servants to meet weekly. It also created a steering committee of city directors who meet monthly with the mayor to provide progress reports and ask for regulatory changes to help the city meet its targets.

In Chicago, Mayor Daley created the CEnO, one of the first such positions in a U.S. city, in August 2007.  Johnston has created an accountability system for city departments that includes an environmental scorecard that tracks performance in the areas of energy, air, land, water and waste.

And Johnston, who previously held posts as Chicago's commissioner of environment and the mayor's assistant on green initiatives, is advised by a Green Steering Committee of civil servants who recommend short- and long-term green initiatives.

Montreal city councillor Alan DeSousa, who is responsible for sustainable development on the city executive committee, is the closest Mayor Gérald Tremblay has to a CEnO.  However, DeSousa also juggles the economic development portfolio and major urban development projects on the executive committee, the city's highest decision-making body. He's also borough mayor of St. Laurent, and a member of city council.

And the environment file is divided with committee colleague Helen Fotopulos, who handles waterways and nature parks.

Interest in environmental management is building in Montreal, albeit with tentative steps.  This week, the Montreal Metropolitan Community, representing 82 cities, voted to contribute $100,000 to a $300,000 fund being started by the province to spur a "clean-tech" sector in the region.

Risk capital invested in Quebec firms working on water purification, waste management and other clean-technology areas shot from $17 million in 2006 to $59 million in 2007, the MMC says.  DeSousa adds that he has a steering committee brainstorming on the next phase of the sustainable development plan.

And he says the environment department now has an internal environmental management system "inspired by" ISO 14001. A progress report in May noted 60 actions taken at Crémazie Blvd. city offices, such as a green purchasing policy, battery recycling and car-sharing service for staff between the office and parking lots at transit stations.  Still, he said he wasn't aware of the results until this week.

And DeSousa's environmental arm doesn't stretch into the 19 boroughs - they're autonomous.  He defends Montreal's decentralized system, saying the "one size fits all" formula of other cities wouldn't suit Montreal.  "You have to respect the local particularities," he said. Some boroughs, he added, experiment with environmental initiatives.

Still, Porlier finds the city's approach timid and incoherent. Montreal needs someone to set quantifiable targets for the boroughs and the city departments and to exact results, he said.

"What it takes," he said, "is political will."

- - -

ECO-WIZARDS: What other cities are doing

GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS

Calgary: City's departments have already reduced their greenhouse gases by 44 per cent. Goal is 50 per cent by 2012. Community target to reduce emissions by 30 per cent by 2030.

Chicago: Unveiled plan in September to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 per cent from its 1990 level - the baseline of the Kyoto protocol - by 2020.

Kansas City: Goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 per cent by 2020.

Sydney, Australia: Goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent by 2050, based on 1990 levels; and by 70 per cent by 2030, based on 2006 level.

SOLAR/WIND POWER

Calgary: 75 per cent of electricity in municipal buildings is produced by 85-MegaWatt wind farm built by the city-owned utility company. Target is 90 per cent by 2012. May shoot for 100 per cent.

Solar hot-water program for residents to start next year.

Chicago: Installed solar thermal panels on 26 city-owned or operated facilities, such as police and fire stations, to heat water. Park facilities and bus shelters to be outfitted next.

Dallas: 40 per cent of municipal power in 2008 purchased from renewable energy sources - primarily wind.

Sydney, Australia: Using green power - renewable energy from the sun, wind, water and waste - to light up New Year's Eve celebrations since 2004 and committed to municipal buildings using 100-per-cent green power in short term.

WATER

Calgary: Sells rain barrels to residents at discount.

Bylaw limits sale of anything but low-flow toilets.

Chicago: Since 2004, the city's rain barrel program has distributed over 5,200 barrels at a discount to residents - residents use rainwater collected in the barrels to water lawns.

PUBLIC WORKS

Calgary: City builds retention ponds, or bioswales, by roadside by shaping land to hold water so it can infiltrate. Create engineered wetlands in some bioswales using plants that filter pollutants from the water.

Chicago: Using recycled construction debris in asphalt and concrete mixes for residential road building and up to 50 per cent in concrete for sidewalks.

Installed 374 recycled speed bumps in alleys in 2005 and 225 more in 2006.

Green Alley Program uses permeable pavement allowing water to be absorbed by the soil - helps keep water out of the city's combined sewer and stormwater system to prevent back-up and flooding.

Light-coloured reflective pavement is used to reflect sunlight instead of absorbing it to reduce urban heat island effect.

In 2009, the city will build sustainable street, with permeable pavement, bioswales (broad vegetated channel used to move water and absorb runoff), stormwater and rainwater irrigation, energy-efficient lighting and solar-powered pay-and-display parking meter boxes.

BUILDINGS

Calgary: Organic waste collection in municipal buildings.

LEED Gold standards for all new municipal buildings and trying for LEED Gold for older buildings when renovated.

Chicago: Has about 200 LEED certified and registered projects, including several libraries.

Over the past two years, city and partners distributed more than one million energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Green roof planted on Chicago city hall in 2000. It's over 2,000 square-metres with more than 150 plant types and beehives to harvest honey. City has given grants for 300 private green roofs.

A 10-hectare public park was built on a green roof above an underground parking garage.

Dallas: Expects to complete construction of 25 green facilities by 2010, including 10 libraries, seven police and fire stations, a cultural centre, three recreation centres.

San Jose: Requires municipal buildings over 10,000 square feet to be built according to LEED Silver certification as a minimum. Goal to attain LEED Gold or Platinum certification.

FLEET

Calgary: All garbage and recycling trucks run on biodiesel and some fire trucks; 180 hybrid cars and light trucks, including cars for city building inspectors; plans to add electric vehicles.

Chicago: 113 hybrid vehicles; purchasing 50 bicycles for city employees to use.

Dallas: 41 per cent of municipal fleet of 2,000 cars and trucks run on alternative fuel.

Kansas City: All city diesel vehicles use biodiesel and about 225 vehicles run on compressed natural gas.

Scottsdale, Arizona: All diesel-fuel vehicles and nine trolleys operate on biodiesel; 123 Bi-Fuel vehicles run on compressed natural gas and gasoline.

CHEMICALS

Calgary: Internal "sustainable, ethical and environmental" purchasing policy for everything from buying pencils to trucks. Principles are zero environmental impact and not supporting sweat shops wherever in the world the products are made.

Municipal buildings use "green" cleaning products.

San Jose: Environmental procurement policy for city buildings - including items like compostable utensils, paper with minimum content of recyclable material.

Might ban hand soaps containing triclosan, an antibacterial agent, in city buildings.

lgyulai@thegazette.canwest.com

Read about Montreal's sustainable development policy at ville.montreal.qc.ca/developpementdurable

http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=1008937