PALM SPRINGS — One of the first things you notice about the solar panels going up at the Desert Water Agency’s main office in Palm Springs is that they do not face south — generally considered the optimal direction for solar — like the 355-kilowatt array the agency installed on its property eight years ago.
Work begins Tuesday on a new 715-kilowatt solar system at the Desert Water Agency in Palm Springs. K Kaufmann, The Desert Sun
“We’ve just gotten a little smarter; the industry has improved,” said David Luker, DWA’s general manager, watching construction workers screwing panels onto ground-mounted frames on Tuesday with the morning sun beating down, practically screaming to be converted into electricity.
“It’s facing southwest and a fixed array ‘cause it’s more efficient than due south,” he explained. “It takes more advantage of the sun and for a longer period of time.”
The new panels are also about twice as efficient as the older installation built in 2005, Luker said. Those south-facing panels, 2,028 in all, power the agency’s operations yard, with excess electricity going back into the grid and zeroing out the yard’s energy bills, agency officials said.
When it goes online later this fall, the new 715-kilowatt array will include only 400 more panels than the original installation, but produce more than twice the power, which will be used at DWA’s recycling plant, Luker said.
Members of the DWA Board of Directors see the project as an almost perfect loop — using renewable energy to recycle water.
“That is the water we take from the Palm Springs sewer plant,” board President Pat Oygar said Tuesday. “We put it through three stages of purifying, and then we put it back out on the golf courses, the public golf courses, along with parks so we don’t have to use drinking water; we can use recycled sewer water.”
The cost of the system was funded through taxes and water rates, Luker said. DWA projects a 10- to 12-year payback period, depending on electric rates, saving the agency between $3 million and $4 million over a 25-year period. The savings will be passed on to ratepayers to keep their water bills if not lower, at least stable.
Solar energy has a small but growing role in helping valley water agencies control rates. A 420-kilowatt installation the city of Coachella installed at its water reclamation plant in 2011 provides about 40 percent of the facility’s power.
Mission Springs Water District in Desert Hot Springs is planning a 1.48-megawatt solar project, funded with a $3.3 million grant from the $51 million in air quality improvement funds from Competitive Power Ventures’ Sentinel power plant in North Palm Springs.
Part of the power from the system will go directly to a Mission Springs well head to pump water, while the balance will be used to offset other costs, said district spokesman John Soulliere. Estimated savings start at $226,000 in the first year of operation and rise annually to $580,000 after 25 years.
A construction schedule has yet to be finalized. The agency is still negotiating the details of the grant contract with the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which is administering the Sentinel grants, he said.
Solar use at the Coachella Valley Water District is limited to a couple of small installations on the Coachella Canal that power isolated water gates that have no other source of electricity, spokeswoman Heather Engel said.
While small, the CVWD installations underline the critical relationship between water and energy use — referred to as the water-energy nexus — an issue that has drawn increasing attention in recent years as concerns have risen about climate change, drought and potential water shortages.
Nearly 20 percent of all the power used in California goes to water — transporting it, treating it, pumping it, heating it and recycling it — with more than half, 11 percent, going to residential, commercial and industrial use, according to the state Energy Commission.
“One of the foremost things we need to think about in California — two-thirds of the water is in Northern California; two-thirds of the population is in Southern California,” said Joe Stuart, a DWA board member.
And while water runs downhill, getting it to cities often means pumping it uphill, he said, pointing to the pumping station visible from Interstate 10 near Desert Center, east of the Coachella Valley — its big white pipelines seeming to come out of the side of the mountain.
“What people don’t realize, they think that water is coming downhill,” Stuart said. “The water comes in and is pumped up those pipes. Those pumps have to run on electricity.”
Officials at both DWA and Mission Springs said that as other costs for transporting and treating water continue to rise, cutting electric bills with renewable energy could be a key factor in controlling water rates.
Valley water agencies recently predicted that meeting new state standards for hexavalent chromium, a toxic metal found in some wells in the region, could add millions of dollars to their operating expenses, with the costs passed on to ratepayers. CVWD officials estimated individual water bills could rise anywhere from $7 to $50 a month.
“Water is not going to get any cheaper in the West. The costs of moving it, the cost of regulation, it’s going to continue to go up,” Soulliere said.
“You have to find a way to make water more affordable, and renewable energy is one of those areas we need to keep our eye on.
“It’s not going to make water cheaper but it offsets increases in other costs in the industry,” he said. “It helps to keep costs in check.”
Energy and green technology reporter K Kaufmann can be reached at (760) 778-4622, k.kaufmann@thedesertsun.com or on Twitter @kkaufmann.
And while water runs downhill, getting it to cities often means pumping it uphill, he said, pointing to the pumping station visible from Interstate 10 near Desert Center, east of the Coachella Valley — its big white pipelines seeming to come out of the side of the mountain. “What people don’t realize, they think that water is coming downhill,” Stuart said. “The water comes in and is pumped up those pipes. Those pumps have to run on electricity.” Officials at both DWA and Mission Springs said that as other costs for transporting and treating water continue to rise, cutting electric bills with renewable energy could be a key factor in controlling water rates. Valley water agencies recently predicted that meeting new state standards for hexavalent chromium, a toxic metal found in some wells in the region, could add millions of dollars to their operating expenses, with the costs passed on to ratepayers. CVWD officials estimated individual water bills could rise anywhere from $7 to $50 a month. “Water is not going to get any cheaper in the West. The costs of moving it, the cost of regulation, it’s going to continue to go up,” Soulliere said. “You have to find a way to make water more affordable, and renewable energy is one of those areas we need to keep our eye on. “It’s not going to make water cheaper but it offsets increases in other costs in the industry,” he said. “It helps to keep costs in check.” Energy and green technology reporter K Kaufmann can be reached at (760) 778-4622, k.kaufmann@thedesertsun.com or on Twitter @kkaufmann.
