San Diego is recognized as the leading local government in the United Stated using renewable energy. But is the city taking advantage of its sunny weather to move ahead with solar energy to meet its own goals? In the next installment of our series on what San Diegans are doing about global warming, KPBS reporter Alison St John looks at the city’s use of renewable energy.
In 2003, before Jerry Sanders became mayor of San Diego, the city set a goal of bringing 50 megawatts of renewable energy on line within the next ten years. That’s enough electricity to power more than 40,000 homes. Mayor Jerry Sanders recently embraced that goal.
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How Landfill Waste is Converted to Energy • Garbage is collected, delivered to the landfill and compounded • Decomposition of the garbage causes the release of gases • Underground landfill pipes remove the gases (mostly methane) • Gases are pumped to an engine, and the engine powers a generator • The generator creates electricity, which is added to the power supply WEB EXTRA | View the process» |
Sanders : We’re really stepping out as a city and setting increasing goals. A 50 megawatt goal of renewable energy is a huge goal for a city.
Last year the Federal Environmental Protection Agency listed San Diego as the number one local government in the country using so-called green or renewable energy. But ecological designer Jim Bell, who has run for mayor of San Diego three times, says the city’s goals are like whistling in the wind.
Bell : It’s nice, you know, what they’re doing. And yes, maybe they could claim to be a little ahead of some other cities and some other regions, but clearly they don’t understand the enormity of the problem.
Bell calls the city “ideologically handicapped.” He’s calculated how long it would take for the city to become energy independent, even if does add 50 megawatts of renewable capacity every ten years.
Bell : It would take, without efficiency improvements, over 1,000 years.
By Bell’s calculations, the city could meet all its electricity needs with solar if it covered one third of the city’s paved areas -- streets, freeways and parking lots -- with solar panels. San Diego is in an ideal spot to use solar power. But it turns out that well over 90 percent of the green energy the city produces is not solar, but biogas.
The city’s Jesse Pagliaro gave a tour of the Miramar Biosolids Center, where methane gas is pumped out of wells dug in the landfill.
Pagliaro : Those are large caterpillar engines and they’re using the landfill gas to turn generators and the generators are creating electricity.
Pagliaro says both the Miramar Landfill, and the city’s Point Loma waste water treatment plant are powered using biogas and some hydro electricity. Plus, the biogas generates about six megawatts of extra energy a day to put back on the grid.
Pagliaro : The cost savings are in the order of $6 million to $7 million a year.
So what about solar power? It takes four times longer to recoup the costs of developing solar power than biogas. The city has put up solar panels that generate a few hundred kilowatts. But the biggest breakthrough came a month ago when city officials unveiled a solar array capable of producing one megawatt of electricity. That’s enough to power about 750 homes.
The energy from its 6,000 solar panels will run the city’s Alvarado water treatment plant.
Tom Blaire of the city’s Environmental Services Department explains why the city has only begun to really take advantage of solar energy.
Blair : Solar is still more expensive than most systems. The nice thing about this system is that we didn’t have to pay for the panel costs, we just agreed to buy the output from the system.
San Diego contracted with a private company, Sun Edison, to put up the panels. The company will recoup the multi-million-dollar cost by selling the energy to the city. The city benefits because the electricity will be cheaper than SDG&E.
Ecological designer Jim Bell is impatient. He says he’s been advocating this win/win approach for years, and city officials are moving too slowly.
Bell : They are so reluctant to move forward. I mean, as soon as they discovered that, they should have been doing every city building.
When former Mayor Dick Murphy set the goal of 50 megawatts of renewable energy in ten years, the city was already generating about 18 megawatts, mostly using biogas. Since then the city has added only a little over one megawatt of capacity using solar.
The city won’t be able to rest on its environmental laurels as the number one local government user of renewable power much longer. Other cities like Seattle and Austin, Texas are moving ahead with renewable energy plans much faster than San Diego.
Alison St John, KPBS News.
