Greenwire: Developer NextEra Energy Resources LLC has struck a deal with the California Energy Commission that will allow it to move forward with stalled plans for a proposed solar plant in California City.
The proposed 250-megawatt Beacon Solar Energy Project had been mired in a war over water needed to cool the plant for the past year.
Residents in the arid region east of Bakersfield were concerned that the solar farm would drain their aquifer, but NextEra’s latest plans involve cutting down hundreds of local water-hungry tamarisk trees to pave the way for the solar power plant’s initial water needs.
The plan may provide a roadmap for resolving similar environmental disputes over dozens of other proposed solar farms in the desert.
“The water that normally would go into the tamarisk will go down into the basin — it’s a big environmental win,” said Michael Bevins, California City’s public works director. An acre of invasive tamarisks can consume 1 million gallons of water each year, said Tim Carlson, research and policy director for the Tamarisk Coalition, a Grand Junction, Colo., nonprofit group working to eradicate the trees.
The Beacon proposal is still in the planning stages, and it is still unclear how many trees would be removed and just how much water would be saved.
NextEra expects to eventually cool the plant using treated wastewater but would need to draw freshwater in its early stages (Todd Woody, Los Angeles Times, Feb. 16). – DFM