Renewable Energy Parks

Here is some general information about the concept of a Renewable Energy Park in Eastern San Diego County.  This park would accommodate up to several thousand MW of renewable energy in dispersed small power plants and put the energy cost on the same footing as a large power plant of the same technology in the desert.

The initial impetus for this concept was the SANDAG goal for the San Diego region that 50% of the renewable energy originate from inside the County.  The basic idea is to set up multiple sites for potential small modular solar power plants in east San Diego County where there is the potential for 1000s MW.  The aggregation of these sites would be called the Renewable Energy Park.  All the suitable sites would be identified and all the up-front project activities accomplished so that the sites would be available for the construction of a small power plant (5 to 40 MW).  When a power provider signed a PPA (purchase power agreement) with SDG&E for say 300 MW, the power provider would have access to choose several of the sites in the Renewable Energy Park to make up the total power commitment in the PPA.  The cost of the generated power from these in-County sites would be similar to a desert location with the lesser solar resource in-County balanced by the additional energy cost of the transmission line to bring the power to San Diego.  

The goal of this approach is to remove  the high transaction costs of having many smaller power plants add up to the same power as one large solar plant.  This is done by having all the early project activities done (grid studies and site grid accessibility, permits, lease agreements with the rancher land owner, environmental impact studies, etc) and the sites put in a land bank available to power providers when they sign a PPA with SDG&E. 

The modular solar technologies are utility scale flat PV with or without tracking, concentration PV and the Dish Stirling and all typically have a module of about 25 kW.  The small plants could all be build from 5 MW (25 acres) to 40 MW (200 acres) on gently rolling land with dual-use with grazing.  The up-front cost of creating this Renewable Energy Park could be recovered when the power provider choose the parcel to use as part of the commitment to meet the total PPA plant size.

This renewable resource of up to 1000s MW in east County would not need new transmission lines but the existing 69kV grid may have to be reinforced.  It is clear that this option needs exploring.  The major question in the initial exploration of the San Diego Renewable Energy Park (REP) concept is who would create the Renewable Energy Park.

The most likely candidate is the state via the CEC in cooperation with the CPUC.  It is a basic goal of the CES further renewable energy in California to meet the mandated future goals.  Activating this large resource in San Diego County would help meet this goal.  Since the up-front cost would be recovered when the parts of the REP are taken over by the energy plant provider, the costs involved would tend to be more like a loan than a sunk cost.  

The CEC would need an organization to go out and evaluate the feasibility of the REP and then create the park if feasible.  This could be any number of organizations from the local utility, a for-profit or a non-profit such as CCSE.  A draft request for proposal (RFP) describing the next steps in establishing REP feasibility is available and can be used as a starting place for the organization that steps forward to support the REP concept.

Currently, the San Diego Renewable Energy Society is encouraging this concept and attempting to find the initial support the funding of the draft RFP for the Renewable Energy Park concept.