Solar power project clears major hurdle
After agreeing to a major design change, backers of a proposed Ridgecrest Solar Power Plant have
announced that they have eliminated a major objection to the project and are ready to proceed.
According to Nicole Tenenbaum, senior project manager for Berkeley-based Solar Millennium LLC, her
company will present an overview of their reworked plans for the solar plant during tonight’s Steering
Committee meeting at the Bureau of Land Management office in Ridgecrest.
Solar Millennium originally proposed to build a thermal-solar power plant similar to the one near Kramer
Junction on Highway 395. But the thousands of acre-feet of water the plant would boil off to cool its working
fluid was a concern for the Indian Wells Valley Water District, which objected to the plant as long as it
intended to use so-called wet cooling.
Facing the prospect of an objection from the water district during its environmental review process, Solar
Millennium altered its plans and substituted a dry cooling method for the one it originally planned to use.
The result – a plant that will produce an estimated 242 megawatts of power, enough for 125,000 homes,
but use only 250 acre-feet of water per year.
That number was low enough to satisfy the concerns of the water district, according to Water Board
Director Don Cortichiato.
“We never opposed solar power. We opposed using all that water when dry cooling was already
available,” said Cortichiato.
Water District General Manager Tom Mulvihill and Director Leroy Corlett expressed the district’s concerns
to the company and the public at a meeting about the proposed power plant held in Victorville last year. And
Timothy Quinn, president of the Association of California Water Agencies, wrote letters to the BLM and state
officials decrying the plan to use wet cooling.
As late as November, officials of Solar Millennium and the water district were still disagreeing about
whether dry cooling was a feasible technology at the proposed plant, according to Cortichiato. But early this
year the company agreed to use the dry method.
“It would have been a tremendous drain on our watershed if they had been using that water year after
year after year,” he said, referring to the 2,000 to 4,000 acre-feet per year that wet cooling would have used.
“The district is really pleased, because that is a significant savings for many years to come.”
For comparison, all water users in the valley take approximately 30,000 acre-feet of water per year.
Estimates of the amount of recharge – water that flows into the valley’s aquifer deep underground – vary
widely, but many experts believe it is less than 10,000 acre-feet.
Rainer Aringhoff, president of Solar Millennium LLC, estimated that the project would be ready for
construction to begin in late 2010 and take two years.
Before the company can get the required permits to build the plant, however, the project must undergo a
rigorous environmental review, Tenenbaum noted.
She predicted that the company will have all the required documents turned in to the BLM by July to begin
a one-year process of drafting an environmental impact report. The public will have several opportunities to
get information from Solar Millennium and give feedback as part of the EIR.
Tenenbaum encouraged all interested members of the public to attend tonight’s meeting, get the latest
information and meet the people behind the project.
announced that they have eliminated a major objection to the project and are ready to proceed.
According to Nicole Tenenbaum, senior project manager for Berkeley-based Solar Millennium LLC, her
company will present an overview of their reworked plans for the solar plant during tonight’s Steering
Committee meeting at the Bureau of Land Management office in Ridgecrest.
Solar Millennium originally proposed to build a thermal-solar power plant similar to the one near Kramer
Junction on Highway 395. But the thousands of acre-feet of water the plant would boil off to cool its working
fluid was a concern for the Indian Wells Valley Water District, which objected to the plant as long as it
intended to use so-called wet cooling.
Facing the prospect of an objection from the water district during its environmental review process, Solar
Millennium altered its plans and substituted a dry cooling method for the one it originally planned to use.
The result – a plant that will produce an estimated 242 megawatts of power, enough for 125,000 homes,
but use only 250 acre-feet of water per year.
That number was low enough to satisfy the concerns of the water district, according to Water Board
Director Don Cortichiato.
“We never opposed solar power. We opposed using all that water when dry cooling was already
available,” said Cortichiato.
Water District General Manager Tom Mulvihill and Director Leroy Corlett expressed the district’s concerns
to the company and the public at a meeting about the proposed power plant held in Victorville last year. And
Timothy Quinn, president of the Association of California Water Agencies, wrote letters to the BLM and state
officials decrying the plan to use wet cooling.
As late as November, officials of Solar Millennium and the water district were still disagreeing about
whether dry cooling was a feasible technology at the proposed plant, according to Cortichiato. But early this
year the company agreed to use the dry method.
“It would have been a tremendous drain on our watershed if they had been using that water year after
year after year,” he said, referring to the 2,000 to 4,000 acre-feet per year that wet cooling would have used.
“The district is really pleased, because that is a significant savings for many years to come.”
For comparison, all water users in the valley take approximately 30,000 acre-feet of water per year.
Estimates of the amount of recharge – water that flows into the valley’s aquifer deep underground – vary
widely, but many experts believe it is less than 10,000 acre-feet.
Rainer Aringhoff, president of Solar Millennium LLC, estimated that the project would be ready for
construction to begin in late 2010 and take two years.
Before the company can get the required permits to build the plant, however, the project must undergo a
rigorous environmental review, Tenenbaum noted.
She predicted that the company will have all the required documents turned in to the BLM by July to begin
a one-year process of drafting an environmental impact report. The public will have several opportunities to
get information from Solar Millennium and give feedback as part of the EIR.
Tenenbaum encouraged all interested members of the public to attend tonight’s meeting, get the latest
information and meet the people behind the project.
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
Current Issue Links
|
By ADAM L. R. SUMMERS
News Review Staff Writer
News Review Staff Writer