“This is probably the last gold rush that we will ever see. This is what’s going to replace you knw the rush to petroleum, everybody’s going to rush for solar,”  said CEC project manager Eric Solorio.

Ivanpah’s chief project manager, John Kessler, said the proposed solar plant has changed the way the agency evaluates energy generating projects now.

“We are establishing some blueprints for others to follow, and those include how we approach mitigation. It’s changed our perspective in a number of research areas, from visual to biological to land use, there’s just a huge number of considerations that now have to be looked at differently,” said Kessler when dealing with a solar plant compared to a gas fired power plant. Kessler said a solar project takes up a great deal more acres, maybe 4,000 to 6,000, compared to a gas fired plant, which only needs 20-40 acres.

To give you some perspective, the CEC is one of two agencies that must approve the project before the first solar panel can be placed in the desert.
The Ivanpah project is in the midst of generating an Environmental Impact Report and a plan to relocate 26 endangered Desert Tortoises that reside on the current site in the Mojave Desert. In order for energy company Bright Source to break ground, the CEC and the Bureau of Land Management must approve these reports before Ivanpah can be built. With the push in government spending for renewable projects, hold ups for the billion-dollar-project can put pressure on agencies like the energy commission.

“The energy infrastructure for petroleum is $60 trillion, that has to be replaced by renewables. There’s a lot of money involved here, and therefore a lot of pressure for people to get on the ground.”

Large-scale projects like Ivanpah must go through a process to acquire land for the project as well as get approval from state agencies, like the CEC, to physically build it.
Take a look at the CEC and BLM process for approving a solar project like Ivanpah:

We learned that Ivanpah Solar is an example of how future solar projects will go through the approval process as the CEC considers factors like reliability, socioeconomic effects, the environment, as well as laws, ordinances, regulations and standards on the local, state and federal level. Solorio said he thinks the issues of land use and the environment will become a common theme when talking about solar projects out in the California desert.

“It’s likely when going forward that would be a common event in terms of very large-scale solar plants built on thousands of acres in pristine desert habitat,”  Solorio said.

Last week Emily Elzer and I attended the GridWise Expo in Santa Clara, California, and learned these are just some of the things consumers can expect when the Smart Grid is deployed.
The Smart Grid is essentially transforming the existing, outdated electrical grid into a system monitored by sensors online so energy can be used more efficiently. The grid can be regulated using the Internet and allow for two-way communication between consumers and their energy providers to foster conservation.
At the weeklong conference, tech company Sensus, which provides data collection and metering solutions for utilities, presented software that would allow consumers to communicate with the grid infrastructure by logging onto an account from a computer or television.

On the expo floor, Sensus representative Jon Rappaport showed us the interface that would allow homeowners to see their energy consumption and so they could in turn lower their energy bills.
The Sensus software demo looked like this:

A system like this would allow a customer to click through a dashboard screen to see how all of their home appliances are functioning each day and how much energy, including gas, water and electricity, they are using.
The Sensus home management system would also show the price of electricity that corresponds to the time of day, as well as the individual customer’s overall energy savings.
And customers could also see how their daily energy usage fluctuates using the Sensus program:

Just some of the technological advancements that could make it into your home as the grid gets a digital makeover.

Bright Source Energy said its 400 MW project is the largest solar project in the state of California. But the company must address issues, like the relocation of roughly 26 Desert Tortoises that currently reside on the proposed land, before they can get the go ahead from the Bureau of Land Management and the California Energy Commission.

Desert tortoises reside in the desert lands of southern Nevada, Arizona and specifically in California. They usually live for 50 to 80 years and are a huge concern for Bright Source’s 6-square-mile facility.

Listen to what Keely Wachs, spokesman for Bright Source, said about the project:

Click to play

Southern California Edison has contracts with Bright Source to buy energy from the Ivanpah project and use its own power lines to transport it. And the project’s success is crucial to the utlility meeting its state-mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2010.

And the Tortoises may also jeopardize Bright Source’s chance to begin building in 2010 and allow them to take advantage of the stimulus money allotted for renewable energy projects. The window of opportunity to take advantage of this money will close come 2011.

“We want to take advantage of as many stimulus dollars as there are available to these packages, and there is a very important imperative and that is that the projects begin construction in 2010, to have that money available.” Jeff Harris, an attorney for Bright Source, said to the CEC at a hearing last month.

Wachs talks about the project’s long term goals and time constraints:

Click to play

Currently the BLM is reviewing Bright Source’s revised relocation plan before they can complete an environmental impact statement—a step that needs to be completed before construction begins. However Tom Hurshman, the BLM project manager for Ivanpah, said the company has not yet handed over a detailed plan of how to move the Tortoises.

“They have not given us all the information to complete our analysis,” Hurshman said. Once they have a relocation plan that complies with the California Endangered Species Act, he said the, “BLM needs that information to do biological assessment, that will go to wildlife service.”

The last plan Bright Source submitted did not provide enough detail about the site the Tortoises would be moved to, including the timing of their move, monitoring and reporting on their health, and a plan for fencing in the new habitat to protect the animals.

“They don’t think we need all this information, and we think we do,” Hurshman said about the project’s impact on the environment and wildlife.

And the clock is ticking to have these environmental reports go through the process of review to keep the project on track and qualify for federal funds.
“You are really going to need a decision at the very end of 2009, or January of 2010 to be able to take advantage of the stimulus monies so that you can go out and do the tortoise clearing, put up the fences so that those animals will remain safe during the construction period, and move forward with your other construction activities,” Harris said.

And even a small relocation of tortoises is not so simple, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, who assisted with a relocation project of roughly 600 tortoises last fall at U.S. Army base Fort Irwin.

“We cant just pick them up and move them 50 feet over,” said Roy Averill Murray of U.S. FWS referring to the Tortoises.  “Even with smaller scale operations—none of them are without risk.”