Thoughts on Solar

As 2018 drew to a close, the Pasadena City Council adopted a new Integrated Resource Plan that shows the path forward for the City in the coming years. Not surprisingly, there are some big changes in store as PWP moves away from fossil fuels and toward a greener future. Here’s our take…

Where are we now?

We love Pasadena, but it has a long way to go before it becomes as green as we would like it to be.  For example, here is PWP’s latest power content label that shows the sources of its electricity, compared to California as a whole:

Yikes! 31% of our power overall comes from burning coal - compared to just 4% for the state overall!  

Somewhat surprising is the relatively low amount of natural gas in the mix, given that the Glenarm power plant is now entirely fueled by natural gas.

On the other hand, the City is doing very well in utilizing biomass and waste materials as a fuel source, well ahead of such efforts in the state as a whole.

So it is clear that a great deal of work is yet to be done, and it is the intent of the newly adopted IRP to show the way.

One thing that jumps out of the new plan is that coal is to be eliminated entirely by June of 2027 when existing supply contracts expire, and no new coal contracts will be signed.  Moreover, that plant is scheduled to switch to natural gas by 2025, so coal burning for PWP should end by then.

Distributed Energy Resources

As of the writing of the IRP, there were 1,303 PWP customers who have installed solar power systems at their homes or commercial/non-profit sites.  Collectively, those systems amount to 10.4 MW of installed capacity, with an estimated annual production of 16,600 MWh of energy.  That makes the average installed system size just under 8 kW.

One baffling detail in the planning section of the report: relying on a levelized cost of energy (LCOE) analysis by the Lazard consulting firm, they assert that the LCOE of residential solar (after allowing for the federal tax credit) is from 14.5-24¢/kWh!  Frankly, we aren’t sure how they arrived at that number, since our projects generally project an LCOE in the 9-11¢/kWh range.

So more solar is in PWP’s future, but they won’t be supporting it on homes, schools, or businesses anymore.  Sad.

Other Takeaways…

Here are a couple more takeaways from the 249-page report:

• The City is planning on installing 122 EV charging stations in the next few years
• Electric bill increases would range from roughly 2.7% for residential customers, and up to 3.4% for commercial customers

You can find the entire report here: Pasadena’s Integrated Resource Plan.

Run on Sun is proud to call Pasadena home.  We absolutely love this place.  But it isn’t perfect, as evinced by the latest report on where Pasadena gets its power - that’s right, the 2016 Power Supply Content Label is now out, and it is a mixed bag to say the least!  Here’s our take…

Every year, California utilities are required to post a table that reflects the sources of the power that they provide, the “Power Supply Content Label."  We wrote about PWP’s energy mix when the previous label was published, and at the time we noted that coal constituted 34% of the energy supplied, with natural gas another 6% - a full 40% coming from fossil fuels.  Surely a year later the news would be better, right?

Not so much - here it is, read it and weep:

2016 Power Supply Content Label

Both coal and natural gas went up!  While the overall statewide mix is just 4% coal, PWP gets 10 times that much, a whopping 40%!  Combined with natural gas and 52% of our power comes from fossil fuels.  Moreover, half of the “renewables” comes from burning biomass and waste, thereby also contributing to greenhouse gas emissions!  (One bright spot - utility scale solar now accounts for 5% of all energy, up from zero the year before.)

Lest you think all of the small munis are as bad, not so.  Glendale Water and Power, in particular, is kicking PWP’s backside, with only 5% from coal, and just 29% from natural gas.  GWP also gets 26% of its power from wind!  (Here’s a link to their power label.)

PWP is making some strides, however.  Last year they replaced a 51-year-old steam plant with a combined cycle turbine unit that can produce power within minutes, compared to the 72-hour start time for the old system.  But at 52% fossil fuels, PWP still has a long way to go!

Pasadena is not only the home for Run on Sun, it is also my home for many years now.  Pasadena likes to think of itself as a forward looking, environmentally conscious city.  So it was a bit of a blow to see the latest Power Content Label for our home-grown utility, Pasadena Water and Power (PWP), which reveals that when it comes to powering this city sustainably, we still have a long way to go!

Under California law, (Senate Bill 1305, Sher, Statutes of 1997), electricity retail suppliers are “required to disclose to consumers which types of resources are used to generate electricity being sold."  October 1 is the deadline for utilities to report this info to the California Energy Commission, and they are then required to disclose it to their customers by way of a flier included in the bill.  The disclosure is known as a Power Content Label and it breaks down energy sold by source and compares it to the overall mix in the state. 
Here is PWP’s PCL for 2015:

Wow, that’s a lot of fossil fuels, with the majority of it coal. Contrast that with the rest of the state where coal is roughly 1/6 of the factor that it is at PWP, and keep in mind that you produce 2.1 pounds of CO2 per kWh when burning coal (on average) compared to just 1.2 pounds from burning natural gas.

Worse still, solar makes up 0% of PWP’s overall mix, compared to 6% for the state overall.

If there is a silver lining in these numbers it is this: 2015 is an improvement over the past. As recently as 2013, coal was a whopping 52% of PWP’s total power. So our hometown utility is getting better, but we are a long way from where we need to be!

(*Unspecified means “electricity from transactions that are not traceable to specific generation sources.")