The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has fired up its solar power plant in the Mojave Desert, a project completed with the help of SolarWorld Americas, a solar panel manufacturer with commercial operations in Camarillo. The LADWP held a commissioning ceremony July 23 for its Adelanto Solar Power Plant, an 11.4-megawatt solar installation designed and supplied by solar power equipment maker SolarWorld. The plant consists of 46,322 of SolarWorld’s 250-watt solar panels mounted over the company’s Sunfix Ground Mount racking. The LADWP estimates the plant will produce an average of 20,000 megawatt-hours of power per year for the next 25 years. That is equivalent to powering about 3,300 homes, or avoiding 12,800 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year, the department said. “It’s predominantly U.S. content,” said Kevin Kilkelly, president of SolarWorld Americas. “The solar panels were actually manufactured in our SolarWorld facility in Camarillo, Calif., over 18 months ago. The steel was procured and formed out of the City of Industry’s local area and the L.A. area, as well. … The inverters came from Denver.” Other components made in the U.S. included the project’s connectors, surge arresters, transformers, combiner boxes and switch board. SolarWorld Americas was awarded the contract in 2010. The majority of the company’s work on the project was completed in 2011, Kilkelly said. The plant started generating power on June 30, according to the LADWP. Through the new power plant and other efforts, LADWP plans to increase the amount of renewable energy provided to customers from its current level of 20 percent to 33 percent by 2020, LADWP General Manager Ronald O. Nichols said in a prepared statement. —Jessica Vernabe, Staff Contributor
Mojave Solar Project Powers Up
