By Faughn Commercial • New Developments • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

30 million sq ft ‘carbon management’ business park coming to Kern thanks to federal energy grant

One of the great challenges of our time is what to do with all that carbon in the atmosphere. On Tuesday, Kern County stepped forward with the seed of an answer. Or, multiple answers, as the case may be. One answer is to put it deep in the ground. Carbon sequestration, it is called. But there may be more solutions, and on Tuesday Kern County officials announced an innovative and potentially game-changing approach to discovering them. An approach that might be an example not just to California but the world.

Kern County, with help from the U.S. Department of Energy, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,  and other partners, will develop a 30 million square foot, 4,000 acre business park dedicated to dealing with carbon  – a natural byproduct of fossil fuels and other emissions and the central culprit in climate change. And powering the whole thing – a 30,000 acre solar farm on land no longer viable for agriculture. The Clean Energy and Carbon Management Business Park in west Kern – still in the very early stages of development – is intended to be the home of private sector investment in new carbon management technologies, from Direct Air Capture to Green Hydrogen. All five county supervisors along with three key county administrators gathered Tuesday to make the announcement. Supervisor Zack Scrivner’s district includes much of the county’s oil fields. “This process will include a stakeholder process with our partners and community,” he said, “in understanding what types of industries and jobs could be a reality in just the next few years.”

Renewable energy brought $60 billion of private and public investment to the county over the last 15 years and the hope is that the business park can do it again. If any of this sounds vague, that’s because much of it is. The purpose of the research grant is to help Kern and its several partners – among them Cal State Bakersfield, the Kern Community College District,  and the City of Bakersfield – in the development of clean carbon management  industries. Kern County wasn’t the only local government making announcements about our energy future. The City of Bakersfield and the Kern Community College District made a separate announcement Tuesday afternoon about a Department of Energy research grant of their own – part of the same Local Energy Action Program – designed to help communities create plans that reduce local air pollution, increase energy resilience, and lower both utility costs and energy burdens. Bakersfield and Kern County are two of the inaugural 22 jurisdictions around the country receiving these DOE grants, funded by the Biden administration’s $1.3 trillion infrastructure bill.

 

https://www.kget.com/news/local-news/30-million-sq-ft-carbon-management-business-park-coming-to-kern-thanks-to-federal-energy-grant/

By Faughn Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Merced dairy turning cow manure into renewable energy

A Merced dairy is converting cow waste into renewable energy. Eileen Martinho works for Maas Energy Works and tells us how it’s done. “This is a dairy digester cluster project, where each dairy is a digester on their facility,” she said. “Then, they are sending methane gas from their digester, which is the purpose of the digester, is to collect the methane gas off of the manure.” After the manure is collected from thousands of cows, a special contraption called a Digester is used to help create renewable natural gas or “biomethane” before it’s sent back through a pipeline to one central location.

Local dairy producer Alex Dejager was hesitant when he was first approached about this project, not knowing the benefits or what it would turn into almost two years later. “Maas Energy came to us, basically knocked on our door and said we have a big dream of doing a project out here to capture emissions from 15,16 different dairies in one little area, pipeline it all to on essential area and basically move that gas to PG&E, and we kind of all laughed at him,” he said.

Approximately 55 percent of California’s methane emissions come from dairies and livestock and after learning more about the good this project can bring, Dejager quickly became involved and he believes more California farmers will have to do the same to stay financially sustainable. “If you think of one milking cow, it equates to taking one car off the road each year,” Martinho said. Although this natural gas will be cleaner, the cost of energy is not expected to decrease anytime soon. “In general, we are trying to lower the cost of the rates for our customers, RNG and this type of project is going to make it more efficient for us to develop cleaner fuels in the future,” says Janisse Quinonez with PG&E.
By Faughn Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Stanislaus County will pilot plan to put solar panels over irrigation canals

A first-in-the-nation project to build solar panels over irrigation canals will get underway later this year in Stanislaus County. Turlock Irrigation District expects to break ground in the fall on building solar panels at multiple locations within the 250 miles of its canals. The agency expects to produce renewable energy and reduce water evaporation. Called Project Nexus, the plan is a concept developed by UC Merced and funded with $20 million by the California Department of Water Resources. According to the UC study, if the state’s 4,000 miles of canals were covered, it could result in a savings of 63 billion gallons of water annually and generate 13 gigawatts of solar power, or one-sixth of the state’s current installed capacity.

Josh Weimer with Turlock Irrigation says Project Nexus will put that theory to the test. “[It will] provide a model to not only California but the rest of the country to utilize our existing water infrastructure to produce renewable energy and potentially save water,” Weimer said. Weimer says the panels will be placed at three different locations. The pilot project will put to the test the feasibility of covering the state’s 4,000 miles of canals with solar panels. “We are excited of the potential,” he said. “The potential to save water from evaporation and also to minimize the amount of maintenance that we have to do in our system to ensure reliability of irrigation deliveries to our growers.”  The project should be completed by 2024.

https://www.capradio.org/articles/2022/02/16/stanislaus-county-will-pilot-plan-to-put-solar-panels-over-irrigation-canals/

By Faughn Renewable Energy • Workforce 0 Comments

Renewable fuel production heats up in Kern

Renewable fuels production is becoming a bigger focus in Kern lately as investors launch projects that reinforce the county’s prominence in biofuels and advanced facilities are proposed for deriving bioenergy from local waste streams. Final preparations for a new renewable diesel project at the former Big West refinery on Rosedale Highway have roughly coincided with the recent expansion of a plant southwest of Bakersfield that leads the state in production of biodiesel. Plans are being made, meanwhile, for recycling centers that would turn household and other organic waste into biomethane, among other projects under consideration. Cooperation taking place locally aims to build on Kern’s momentum. Enthusiasm is running high as local initiatives stand to receive state money. But becoming a true center of excellence may depend on factors beyond local control.

Harry Simpson, CEO of Crimson Renewable Energy Holdings, recently finished a 50-percent increase in production capacity at the company’s 88-acre biodiesel refinery off Millux Road near Interstate 5. As a local operator, he was encouraged by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal last week for an $83 million energy innovation center at Cal State Bakersfield. Hopefully a commercially viable idea will emerge from the new center, he said. But he noted there’s no guarantee any such innovation would be built locally. “The question is, will this stuff get built in Kern County as opposed to somewhere else?” he said. “It would be cheaper and easier for me to do (business) in Texas or Louisiana than California.”

That possibility isn’t stopping local energy leaders from pursuing a collaboration geared toward capitalizing on Kern’s existing strengths in renewable fuels. One of the industry players participating in the county’s B3K Prosperity economic development initiative is Jennifer Haley, president and CEO of Kern Oil & Refining Co., a 155-employee plant that makes renewable diesel and other fuels at its 26,000-barrel-per-day refinery near Lamont. As her own company looks for strategic partners to do more waste-to-fuel processing and production of ultra-low-carbon intensity fuels, she sees the B3K collaboration as the best way to put local talent and other resources to use creating good local jobs. “It’s how do we pivot or how do we evolve toward managing that carbon intensity and meeting our climate goals?” Although it’s hard to say what products and technology will finally help California achieve its goals, she added, “I think we can define what the future looks like and be a part of the solution.”

California imports most of its biodiesel, just as it imports most of its crude oil. But to the degree that turning California’s growing stream of organic waste into energy is a local affair, at least, Kern is expected to attract investment in the months and years ahead, as the state requires municipalities to divert food scraps and other organic waste away from landfills to fight climate change. J.D. Gessin, operations CEO at West Coast Biofuels, is working to convert an idle produce plant in McFarland into a biodiesel and renewable fuels plant serving the commercial transportation industry. It is expected to employ more than 20 people turning waste oils such as grease and rendered fats into fuel for agriculture, heavy machinery, aviation, tractor-trailers and, eventually, maritime transport.

Separately, the company hopes to deploy a series of modular bioenergy refineries in Kern and as far north as Stockton to gasify organic waste that otherwise heads to a landfill. Each facility would employ three dozen or more people and process 20 to 30 metric tons of waste. Gessin said the company expects to eventually produce not only conventional liquid renewable fuels for decarbonizing commercial transport in California but also renewable electricity, biomethane and hydrogen. Local dairies equipped with large manure digesters also produce biomethane for use in Central Valley transportation. The facilities have ramped up quickly in recent years with state subsidies for capturing and harnessing a potent greenhouse gas methane that otherwise vents to the atmosphere.

In 2020, 589 million gallons of renewable diesel accounted for only about one-sixth of California’s total use of diesel fuel, according to the California Energy Commission. Renewables’ share is expected to jump 40 percent just with the project Global Clean Energy Holdings Inc. is preparing to begin on a portion of the former Big West property. Expected to employ more than 100 workers, the plant is planned to produce 15,000 barrels per day, or 230 million gallons per year. Like other local plants, its feedstock will include used cooking oil and rendered fats, though eventually it is expected to incorporate oil from a crop called camelina. Crimson’s operation on Millux, now responsible for 36 million gallons of biodiesel per year, has been the state’s largest producer of the fuel for almost 10 years. It brings in used cooking oil from as far north as Seattle, but still produces less than California biodiesel sources like Singapore. Still greater potential may lie in biomethane and hydrogen produced from organic waste.

Executive director Julia Levin of the Bioenergy Association of California said the state’s capacity for producing biomethane is pegged at the equivalent of 4 billion gallons per year of diesel — a third more than California’s demand for that fuel — using only waste from landfills, wastewater treatment, animal manure, fats, grease and biomass such as ag trimmings. She noted hydrogen could also be created from such sources. The California Public Utilities Commission has helped by requiring natural gas utilities to incorporate biomethane into the fuel it delivers residential customers for use in heating, cooking and drying. Levin said it won’t be long before more jets, ships and heavy-duty trucks are running on the fuel, given that some forms of transportation won’t easily adopt batteries. There are signs as well that state government is preparing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in biomethane, hydrogen and other renewable fuels. She predicted growing demand as California works to replace the feedstock fueling its natural gas power plants and looks for different forms of long-term energy storage. “I don’t think we’re going to see market saturation for a long time,” Levin said. “The problem is opposite right now. We need to ramp up production much more quickly.”

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/renewable-fuel-production-heats-up-in-kern/article_d98de8e0-7561-11ec-b08a-6392a4c10175.html

By Faughn New Developments • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Work starts on 100-megawatt solar project in eastern Kern

Construction has begun five miles west of Rosamond on a 100-megawatt photovoltaic solar project called Rabbitbrush Solar, which will come with a battery component storing 50 megawatt-hours of electricity. As the latest large-scale renewable energy project in eastern Kern, the Canadian-backed development is expected to create 300 union construction jobs at its peak. After that it is expected to generate enough power to run 40,000 homes, essentially removing 48,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year — the equivalent of taking 10,500 gasoline-powered cars off the road. Two companies have signed 15-year agreements to buy energy from the project: Central Coast Community Energy and Silicon Valley Clean Energy. Both are community-choice aggregation providers that sell clean energy to individual customers.

Developer Leeward Renewable Energy said it chose to build in Kern because of the area’s consistent sunlight and flat land. It also credited the availability of electrical transmission lines and other infrastructure nearby, as well as the area’s experienced workforce and the county’s leadership in renewable-energy development. Work began in October at the site near Willow Springs. Construction is scheduled to finish in July and operations are set to begin in August.

Kern’s top planner and lead energy permitting official, Lorelei Oviatt, on Friday described Rabbitbrush as an infill project in an area that’s already home to extensive solar and wind development. She said the county conducted an environmental review of the project and found nothing particularly controversial about it. At least half the jobs generated during construction must be local hires, Oviatt said. She noted the project makes good sense in that battery storage works best near the source of power generation. She also made reference to a simmering conflict between Kern and state government over energy permitting. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has clamped down on oil permitting — a significant source of local jobs and government revenue — even as Sacramento has extended an exemption that denies Kern millions of dollars per year in property tax receipts. “Once again this (Rabbitbrush project) is Kern County’s contribution to California, and we believe that we have a solution for local revenues for right now, but we still continue to advocate for an adjustment to the solar tax exclusion,” Oviatt said.

Leeward reports having 21 renewable energy facilities in nine states with generation capacity totaling about 2,000 megawatts. It says it is working on more than 100 new wind, solar and energy storage projects offering 17 gigawatts of power. Leeward is owned by Canadian pension company OMERS Infrastructure, which reports having $114 billion in net assets.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/work-starts-on-100-megawatt-solar-project-in-eastern-kern/article_e135ea22-700f-11ec-8fcc-e7aa8f3d631f.html

By Faughn Energy • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

CIM Group’s Aquamarine, 250-megawatt Solar Photovoltaic Project at Westlands Solar Park, Set to Be Fully Operational by Fall 2021

LOS ANGELES–CIM Group announced today that its Aquamarine, 250-megawatt solar photovoltaic project, part of the first phase of its Westlands Solar Park (WSP), will be fully operational by fall 2021 and is on track to meet its contracted delivery of 50-megawatts of capacity to Valley Clean Energy Alliance. Valley Clean Energy Alliance, which executed a contract with WSP in early 2020, is a locally-governed electricity provider for the California cities of Davis, Woodland, Winters and unincorporated portions of Yolo County.

“We believe Westlands Solar Park is ideally positioned to be a leader in California’s program to reduce the state’s carbon footprint and meet its Renewable Portfolio Standards targets. With Aquamarine advancing to full operation before year-end, we are realizing our vision for Westlands Solar Park to become a major clean energy provider as well as meeting a significant commitment in our company’s ongoing sustainability program,” said Avi Shemesh, Co-Founder and Principal, CIM Group. “With Aquamarine, and the future phases of Westlands Solar Park, we also are bringing clean energy jobs to the region and generating revenue for the local government and area businesses.”

CIM Group recently marked a significant milestone for the Aquamarine project, closing on debt and tax equity financing. Deutsche Bank was the lead arranger of the debt financing. “Deutsche Bank is excited to support CIM Group in its construction and operation of this first phase of the Westlands Solar Park. This is an important step towards our institutions’ shared goal to invest in sustainable and socially responsible projects. We look forward to continue working alongside CIM as they develop WSP and other projects beneficial to the energy transition,” says Jeremy Eisman, Head of Infrastructure & Energy Financing for Deutsche Bank in the Americas.

WSP has the opportunity to contribute to economic development in Central Valley communities by diversifying the region beyond agriculture and creating over 400 clean energy jobs, for both construction and operations, under a union labor agreement governing the entire project. WSP is also poised to generate direct and indirect revenue such as local taxes, purchasing and ancillary spending. “Recently, we completed a new power purchase agreement with Silicon Valley Power which serves the City of Santa Clara. With the imminent completion of Aquamarine, we are in active discussions with numerous entities to supply the clean energy that is critical to meeting the short- and long-term goals for renewable energy – vital to improving communities,” noted Shemesh.

Aquamarine recently entered into a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the City of Santa Clara, CA (Silicon Valley Power) to sell renewable energy credits (REC) associated with 75 megawatts of capacity, joining other off-takers at WSP including Anaheim Public Utility, and is currently negotiating additional PPAs with other potential counterparties. Silicon Valley Power is the not-for-profit electric municipal utility of the City of Santa Clara.

WSP is one of the largest permitted solar parks in the world, with the capacity to grow to more than 2,700-megawatts (2.7 gigawatts) of renewable energy at full buildout and with the potential to provide clean energy to more than 1,200,000 homes. The master-planned energy park encompasses more than 20,000 acres in California’s San Joaquin Valley in western Fresno and Kings Counties and is designed to open in phases to meet the needs of public and private utilities and other energy consumers. WSP has a completed and certified programmatic environmental impact report for the entire project and WSP is one of the few renewable energy zones identified as a Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) thru the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative (RETI) process.

CIM Group actively looks for opportunities to apply sustainable principles across its real asset portfolios, and at WSP, CIM is repurposing selenium-contaminated and drainage impaired farmland for the development of clean energy. In addition, WSP seeks to improve air quality in the San Joaquin Valley as the solar park doesn’t generate fine particular pollution which is a major contributor to the area’s historic poor air quality. WSP has garnered strong support from environmental communities including the Sierra Club, NRDC, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Center for Biological Diversity. The goal of CIM’s clean energy projects is to provide solutions to multiple policy objectives for the state of California’s renewable energy mandate including greenhouse gas reduction and carbon free energy.

Since its inception in 1994, CIM has focused on investing in real estate and infrastructure projects located in or serving densely-populated communities throughout the Americas. WSP, located in a designated Opportunity Zone as defined under the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, is an example of CIM’s commitment to investing in sustainable assets across communities as well as investing in Opportunity Zones. CIM is a UNPRI signatory and its infrastructure projects have been recognized for sustainability by the California Organized Investment Network (COIN), a division of the California Department of Insurance.

https://www.cimgroup.com/press-releases/cim-groups-aquamarine-250-megawatt-solar-photovoltaic-project-westlands-solar-park

By Amanda Chandler Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Idle biomass plant near Delano would reopen under carbon burial proposal

Kern’s ambitious list of carbon burial proposals has lengthened with the addition of an early-stage, relatively inexpensive plan for reusing an idle biomass plant near Delano to combust local ag waste then burying the byproduct gas while generating small amounts of electricity or hydrogen. A company based in Rancho Cordova that uses rocket technology to increase burn efficiency has initiated preliminary talks with Kern County government as it pursues a similar biomass plant-reuse project in Mendota under a new partnership with Microsoft and oil industry giants Chevron and Schlumberger.

The projects are not without skeptics who question claims the process is carbon negative and doubt the technology itself. Environmental groups have been critical of carbon capture and sequestration generally; they’re no more receptive to burning biomass and burying its byproduct carbon dioxide. If Clean Energy Systems’ project in Mendota lives up to its billing as a safe, financially viable, zero-emission solution for handling the Central Valley’s massive production of ag waste, the company’s proposal in northern Kern could join at least three other projects in the county that, though unrelated to biomass, all aim to address climate change by injecting CO2 deep underground.

CES has purchased the former 50-megawatt, 1,200-ton-per-day Covanta Delano LLP biomass plant that was shut down in 2015. That was after a large share of the state’s biomass power plants shut down several years ago in the face of competition from against other renewable energy producers. The loss of facilities that had taken in ag waste resulted in a glut of feedstock, leading many farmers to burn their woody waste openly. Regulations on such pollution have since tightened while mulching of shredded orchards and vineyards has become more common. Even so, some growers are finding customers for their biomass.

After CES initiated a conversation with officials in Kern, the county did a preliminary assessment that led it to inform the company in early 2020 it would have to perform a full environmental review and pay certain fees. Things have stopped there. “We are not actively processing any permit for any Clean Energy Systems project anywhere in unincorporated Kern County,” the county’s top energy-permitting official, Lorelei Oviatt, said by email. Environmental advocates who would prefer the project remain on hold have raised a number of concerns not unique to the CES proposal near Delano.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/idle-biomass-plant-near-delano-would-reopen-under-carbon-burial-proposal/article_40b1cedc-54b1-11ec-bb81-9b8ecd1354ae.html

By Amanda Chandler Energy • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Compressed-air energy proposal in east Kern comes up for state review

State review is officially underway on a major energy-storage project near Rosamond that would use compressed air, thermal engineering and hydrostatic force to even out delivery of renewable power and make the state’s electrical grid more resilient. At a cost estimated at $975 million, the 500-megawatt, 4,000-megawatt-hour proposal would take electrons from renewable energy sources nearby to power air compression and underwater injection. When energy is needed later, air would be released upward to run a turbine generator. Heat would be removed early then returned later in the process.

Named the Gem Energy Storage Center, the Canadian-led project would be one of the largest of its kind on the planet, a new-generation infrastructure investment to help meet California’s huge need for large-scale energy storage. “Gem’s quick-starting, flexible and dispatchable long-duration energy supply will have the ability to ramp-up and down through a wide range of electrical output,” Toronto-based Hydrostor said in a Dec. 1 news release announcing its local subsidiary had filed an application for certification from the California Energy Commission. Added CEO Curtis VanWalleghem: “We look forward to working closely with the citizens of Kern County to earn their trust and support on our way to becoming a valued member of the community.” Besides widening Kern’s already diverse energy portfolio, Hydrostor said, the project would create 30 to 40 good-paying, full-time jobs, plus 700 construction jobs, all without emissions.

Gem is slated to open in early 2026 after a four-year construction period, and thereafter generate property tax revenues and $500 million in regional economic benefits over its 50-year lifespan. The project has a little longer discharge capacity than a similar energy-storage proposal in San Luis Obispo that Hydrostor recently brought before the energy commission.

https://www.bakersfield.com/news/compressed-air-energy-proposal-in-east-kern-comes-up-for-state-review/article_576b63ae-547f-11ec-88cd-7f4089f7bd01.html

By Amanda Chandler New Developments • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Environmental group and Tejon Ranch agree on plan to build 19,300 zero-emission homes

One of Southern California’s longest running development battles ended after two decades Wednesday when an environmental group agreed to the construction of a massive “net-zero” greenhouse gas community of 19,300 homes just off Interstate 5 on the southern flanks of the Tehachapi Mountains. The pact between the Tejon Ranch Co. and the nonprofit Climate Resolve comes amid a severe housing crunch across California and removes perhaps the largest roadblock remaining for the 6,700-acre Centennial project bordering Kern County, about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. The project had been stalled repeatedly by environmental and economic challenges, even as other large developments won approval in one of the last undeveloped sections of Los Angeles County. The proposal had won final certification two years ago from the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, and the company declared that it had been vindicated. But earlier this year, Superior Court Judge Mitchell Beckloff rejected the county’s approval of the developer’s environmental impact report, effectively blocking construction.

Specifically, the judge cited aspects of the environmental review concerning wildfire risk and additional greenhouse gases generated by vehicles. Under terms of the deal expected to be presented to Beckloff later Wednesday, Climate Resolve has agreed to dismiss its legal claim that L.A. County violated the California Environmental Quality Act when it approved Centennial in 2019. The new development, which will not include natural gas hookups, would be designed specifically to combat global warming, the parties said. The agreement calls for the installation of nearly 30,000 electric vehicle chargers at residences and commercial businesses. In addition, the plan will include other incentives to support the purchase of 10,500 electric vehicles, school buses and trucks.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-12-01/tejon-ranch-will-build-19-300-zero-emission-homes

By Amanda Chandler Energy • Renewable Energy 0 Comments

Fresno County lands what reportedly will be West Coast’s largest green hydrogen plant

Fresno County will be home to what a New York company says will be the largest green hydrogen production facility on the West Coast. Officials with Plug Power, headquartered in Latham, New York, said in their Monday announcement that the plant — near Mendota — is expected to produce 30 metric tons of liquid green hydrogen daily within about four years.

The facility will use a new 300 megawatt zero-carbon solar farm to power 120 megawatts of Plug Power’s state-of-the-art PEM electrolyzers, which split water into hydrogen and oxygen through an electro-chemical process, the announcement stated. The California plant would join the company’s growing national network of facilities in New York, Tennessee and Georgia that officials say will supply 500 tons per day of liquid green hydrogen by 2025 — replacing, the company states, 4.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions and 1,000 tons per day globally by 2028.

Work will include construction of a new tertiary wastewater treatment plant in Mendota that will provide recycled water for residents and supply the full needs of the plant. The company hopes to break ground in early 2023 and complete commissioning in early 2024. The company announcement did not specify where the hydrogen plant will be built nor how many people might be hired locally. “The project is a huge win for the city of Mendota, and we are very happy to see this significant investment in clean energy in our community,” Mendota Mayor Rolando Castro said. “This green-hydrogen plant will provide full-time, high-paying jobs for our people. The city will also get a new wastewater treatment plant to provide recycled water for the city and all the needs of the hydrogen plant.”

https://energycentral.com/news/fresno-county-lands-what-reportedly-will-be-west-coasts-largest-green-hydrogen-plant