In L.A., getting paid to go green

DWP customers can add to the city grid through solar panels. Goal is 150 megawatts.

For The Record Los Angeles Times Saturday, June 29, 2013 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 4 News Desk 2 inches; 102 words Type of Material: Correction Solar power: An article in the June 27 Business section about the Clean L.A. Solar program, which allows the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to pay customers to generate solar power, said four megawatts were reserved for smaller projects that can generate 30 to 150 kilowatts per hour and that the remaining 16 megawatts in the first portion of the program were reserved for large projects that can generate 150 kilowatts to 3 megawatts per hour. The correct way to describe the power-generation capacity of solar panels is in kilowatts or megawatts, not kilowatts per hour or megawatts per hour.

"It is really a no-brainer," said Christian Wentzel, chief executive of Solar Provider Group, which installed the North Hollywood panels. Long-term contracts with the DWP cemented the Los Angeles company's plans to invest $50 million in 17 projects to tap the region's sun-drenched climate.

The goal of the effort, the brainchild of the Los Angeles Business Council, is to generate 150 megawatts of solar electricity, or enough to power about 30,000 homes. The council hopes to attract investments totaling $500 million from a growing list of companies that want to invest in L.A.'s push to go green by setting up large clusters of rooftop solar panels.

Called Clean L.A. Solar, the program allows the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to pay customers to generate solar power across the city's vast expanse of flat roof space.

Atop a beige apartment complex in North Hollywood, rows of solar panels began providing energy Wednesday as part of what backers say is the nation's largest urban rooftop solar program.

Four years in the making, Clean L.A. Solar serves as part of the city's answer to the state mandate to generate 33% of electricity using renewable sources by 2020. DWP officials project the solar purchasing program will help L.A. reach 25% of the state mandate by 2016.

Clean L.A. Solar proponents have their sights set high, aiming to expand the initial 150-megawatt goal over the next several years to 600 megawatts. Mayor-elect Eric Garcetti voiced support for the upgrade during his campaign in January.

"If we have political commitments to expand, you're going to see a large amount of the industry come in and commit resources. This lowers the cost of solar over the long-term," Wentzel said, "and that can only benefit Angelenos."

Wentzel said Solar Provider Group would hire 30 people locally to operate its planned projects, with jobs including engineers, project managers, construction workers and sales representatives. The business council estimates Clean L.A. Solar will create about 4,300 jobs.

Mary Leslie, president of the council, said several studies conducted in collaboration with UCLA and USC revealed a waste of solar power training programs in the city, preparing Angelenos for jobs in a green market too small to employ them.

"At any one point a year and a half ago," Leslie said, "we had 1,300 solar installers in training. About half were working, and of that half, many were having to go outside of the county to find work."

Further studies determined the city's neighborhoods with the highest amounts of light available also tended to overlap with L.A.'s lower-income communities, neighborhoods that could likely benefit from more job opportunities.

Many of these areas, or "hot spots," are home to the programs that offer solar power training, such as those by Homeboy Industries and local chapters of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Leslie said so far, 20 of the 35 approved solar projects were in hot spots.

Despite those potential gains, Clean L.A. Solar has its share of critics. DWP ratepayer advocate Fred Pickel warned the utility would be paying companies much more than necessary for the electricity, which he said would fall on DWP customers.

DWP General Manager Ron Nichols said Pickel's numbers were off, and that the utility had carefully researched market prices and the results of a competitive bidding process during the demonstration phase last year to set the current rate.