Mayor, DWP Sign Deals For Solar Power Project On Tribal Land
EAGLE ROCK (CBSLA.com) — Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the Department of Water & Power have signed an agreement to purchase power from a solar panel project built on Native American tribal land.
KNX 1070's Pete Demetriou reports the city will join Sempra Energy and the Moapa Band of Indians to develop long-term renewable energy sources.
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Villaraigosa was joined by DWP Board Chairman Tom Sayles at the Solar Array project at Occidental College on Thursday for the signing of two city ordinances that approve large long-term solar power purchasing contracts for the DWP.
The development of the K-Road and Copper Mountain solar sites in Nevada is expected to provide 460 megawatts of clean solar power - enough to run over nearly 200,000 homes - within the next four years.
Sayles said the utility considers solar energy to be a major component of its long-term operations strategy.
"It means increasing our renewable energy to 33 percent by 2020, balancing our power with natural gas, and of course, limiting our dependence on coal," he said.
DWP ratepayer advocates have signaled support for the projects and estimated it would cost residential users less than $1.40 a month over the term of the agreements.
The DWP will be the sole recipient of solar power from the 25-year contract with K Road Moapa Solar, which will be located on Moapa Band of Paiute Indians tribal land north of Las Vegas.
Tribal Chairman of the Moapa Band of Paiutes William Anderson gave his support for the project as well.
"How can we be more responsible to our people, to our environment, and how can we go ahead and set that example to go ahead and provide an alternate way of providing energy? What better way than working solar?" Anderson said.
The two contracts, along with the 250 megawatt Adelanto solar array and the groundbreaking future 150 megawatt Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) program, will ultimately allow the DWP to provide enough green energy annually to serve approximately 330,000 households in Los Angeles.
