The Golden State lately signed AB 2661, which provides the Westland Water District the authority to construct transmission strains to allow photo voltaic vitality and storage tasks on 130,000 acres of drainage-impaired farmland.
From pv journal USA
A coalition of farmers and lawmakers is advancing the Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan (VCIP), which goals to construct transmission energy strains able to delivering 20 GWac of solar energy and vitality storage to California. The California legislature enabled this native management by passing AB 2661.
The plan calls for personal traders to finance the event of energy strains and vitality sources, whereas native residents handle the method to make sure that the advantages are distributed throughout the area.
According to native reporting by Jesse Vad of SJV Water, an environmental affect report is at present being developed and is predicted to go to a vote after its launch, which is deliberate for the primary half of 2025.
Jose Gutierrez, assistant normal supervisor of the Westlands Water District (WWD), defined that the principle driver of the plan is the unreliable water provide within the area. Farmers, he stated, want to proceed their conventional position of feeding the inhabitants, however the actuality is that as much as 900,000 hectares must be eliminated attributable to lack of water.
“It simply offers [the farmers] alternative to seek out one other objective of their land and generate earnings to make the farming enterprise extra profitable,” defined Gutierrez.
By 2040, the area is projected to lose greater than 20% of its annual water provide, with local weather change prone to exacerbate this deficit.
AB 2661, signed into legislation by the governor in late September, authorizes WWD to “assemble, function, and preserve any and all works” associated to the event of 20 GW of photo voltaic photovoltaics, storage in vitality, and transmission, delivering electrical energy to entities that promote. shopper energy in California. WWD may additionally allocate some electrical energy for native use throughout the valley, though native consumption is prone to be low in comparison with the output of the 20 GW facility.
According to the California Environmental Quality Act’s web page for the Valley Clean Infrastructure Plan, particular person photo voltaic vegetation “will vary in measurement from 100 to 1,150 MW, with a typical facility’s producing capability which is 250 MW on about 1,600 hectares.” Energy storage amenities are additionally thought-about standalone tasks, with storage capability starting from “100 MW to 1,150 MW with a mean facility having a capability of 250 MW.” Each photo voltaic and vitality storage facility will be linked to the grid by 230-kV or 500-kV generation-interconnection tie-lines, which join one of many 5 500/230-kV substations throughout the VCIP, approx. be aware the picture above.
The venture is predicted to create 3,000 “full-time equal” jobs through the 10-year infrastructure deployment interval, together with 500 everlasting positions.
In early 2024, the Public Utilities Commission of California set a goal to scale back emissions by 25 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equal emissions by 2035. The fee’s 25 MMT Core Case predicts the necessity for 3 GWac of utility-scale photo voltaic to be deployed by 2024 , rising to almost 10 GW by 2028, 17.9 GW by 2033, and eventually reaching 57.5 GW by 2045. California lately surpassed 10 GW of put in utility-scale vitality storage, with almost 14 GW deployed throughout all markets.
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