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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Flex Power on Future Grid

The Seattle alternative energy company behind a new type of natural gas power plant in Palmdale got good news in recent weeks. On Aug. 14, the California Energy Commission issued an order that Summit Power Group can build the proposed power plant. Three days later the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft permit for the company to construct the plant and limit emissions of greenhouse gases, particulate matter and carbon monoxide. Thomas Johns, a consultant for Summit Power, said the final permit from the EPA is expected to come by the end of the year. Construction on the 650-megawatt plant is expected to begin a year after that, he added. “The actual construction period is about 30 months, but it takes about six months in advance to do some additional engineering and get the contractors mobilized,” Johns said. With nearly all the permits in hand, the company can wrap up discussions with utilities that will buy the power generated by the plant, he added. Summit will construct the 650-megawatt co-generation plant for $700 million to $800 million on land along Avenue M at Sierra Highway on the border with Lancaster. It will employ on average 371 workers over the construction period. Operating the power plant is expected to take 23 full-time employees. Alternative power grid The Palmdale project represents a new generation of power plant. It will not be a base-load plant that operates nearly 24 hours or a peak plant that comes on only during maximum electricity consumption times. Instead, it is flexible capacity, designed to provide energy when other sources cannot. The plant, which can start within 10 minutes and ramp to full load in under an hour, would use natural gas to produce energy from a turbine. The heat given off from that process would be used to boil water to generate steam that spins a separate turbine to create additional power. John Mlynar, a spokesman for Palmdale, said an important aspect of the project is how it will support the growth of solar energy and the state’s mandates on the use of alternative power. The plant would go online during the time of day when the use of renewables is winding down and people are getting home from work and turning on the television and other electric devices that creates an increase in demand. “This is going to fill that gap when the renewables are not producing enough,” Mlynar said. “It is important for the state’s goal of reducing its carbon footprint.” Johns said the power plant will be 30 percent to 50 percent more efficient than the plants that are currently being used for when demand increases. Fuel economy for these plants is measured by the amount of British Thermal Units, or BTUs, per kilowatt hour. The older plants, which date to the 1960s and 70s, use about 13,000 BTUs per kilowatt hour, Johns explained. “Our plant will use about 6,600 BTUs per kilowatt hour,” he added. “Essentially it has twice the fuel economy as those (other) plants.” Other benefits to the city from the project includes the money it receives from Summit as it hits certain benchmarks and the economic impact from the construction and operating jobs, Mlynar said. Also, the project brings development infrastructure to the land area where the plant will be built and where the city owns 500 acres of land. The city sold off 50 acres to Summit for the power plant. “It is now more attractive to a potential manufacturer looking for land and the north county is a good place for manufacturing,” Mlynar said. Neighborly concerns Originally, the city of Palmdale planned to build the power plant. But the Great Recession forced the city to sell the project for about $27 million to Summit Power, which has built and operated natural gas, solar and wind projects across the country. The EPA and state Energy Commission approved a license for the power plant in 2011 when it was going to be built by Palmdale. The commission gave its OK on transferring ownership to Summit Power in June 2015. The company, in the meantime, had filed a petition with the commission to amend its power plant license. Major modifications included eliminating the solar component, replacing a wet cooling tower with a dry cooling method that uses less water and reducing the size of the site to 50 acres from 333 acres. The EPA will accept public comments on the draft permit until Oct. 6. A public hearing will take place Sept. 21 at the Kleiner Activity Center at in Lancaster. The plant is situated on the border with the neighboring city of Lancaster. Initially, that municipality had been opposed to the project and had filed documents to be an intervenor in the Energy Commission process for environmental reasons. Summit had done outreach to the city that resulted in it not taking a formal opposing position. “I think we addressed their concerns and they were not an active intervenor in the CEC process,” Johns said.

Mark Madler
Mark Madler
Mark R. Madler covers aviation & aerospace, manufacturing, technology, automotive & transportation, media & entertainment and the Antelope Valley. He joined the company in February 2006. Madler previously worked as a reporter for the Burbank Leader. Before that, he was a reporter for the City News Bureau of Chicago and several daily newspapers in the suburban Chicago area. He has a bachelor’s of science degree in journalism from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

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