WORLD-GENERATION MAY/JUNE 2015 V.27 #2
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CALIFORNIA NEWS
The largest desalination plant in the
US, once it is completed in Carlsbad
California, to be followed soon by a similar
desalination plant in Huntington Beach, will
be selling drinking water to parched
Southern Californians. Each will produce
50 million gallons/day of desalinated water.
Both plants, located on the Pacific
Coast, will require large amounts of power
around the clock to desalinate ocean water
using the latest pressure vessels and
reverse osmosis technologies.
At the same time, state energy agencies
are studying what the profusion of renew-
able resources coming into the grid will do
for reliability and grid stability. The
California Independent System Operator, as
manager of 70% of California’s transmission
system, is analyzing how to integrate into
that system the intermittent solar and wind
resources that will make up 30% of the
state’s total electricity supply by 2020, and
50% by 2030.
Cal-ISO has produced “The Duck
Chart” to illustrate what the diverse energy
supply will produce in terms of net genera-
tion in the years leading up to 2020.
As more renewable resources, primari-
ly wind and solar, are added to the grid, an
over-abundance of generation will occur in
early mornings and mid-afternoons when
users are away from home and appliances
are turned off. This will produce spot mar-
ket prices of zero or negative dollars during
those periods.
A few forward-thinking people are now
asking, “Why can’t the over-generation of
renewables be used to power desalination
plants, reduce their power costs, and solve
both problems.” It may be too late to con-
sider this solution for the plant under con-
struction. But perhaps for the Huntington
Beach plant being planned?
Due to the structure of our distribution
and transmission systems and the tradition-
al utility system, the renewable resources
and the plants need to be next to each
other. In the case of the Carlsberg desalina-
tion plant, SDG&E will provide the power
and absorb the no-cost renewable resourc-
es for its rate payers.
TWO DESALINATION PLANTS EMERGE IN
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
First, let’s look at the two desalination
plants coming to the California drought’s
rescue. The Carlsbad Desalination Plant,
located north of San Diego and projected to
start operating later this year, represents a
$1 billion investment that will infuse $350
million into the local economy.
Poseidon Water, the owner/developer
has signed a 30-year water agreement with
San Diego County Water Authority for
which it will produce 50 million gallons/day
of drinking water for San Diego area resi-
dents – the area at the end of the state’s
water pipeline and most threatened by
shrinking water resources. This will pro-
vide San Diego County with approximately
8% of its total water supply by 2020. The
water will be expensive and will add about
$5.00 to San Diego residents’ water bills.
Poseidon Water has also signed a
60-year lease on the project sight it shares
with the Encina Power Station owned by
NRG West which intends to build the 632-
MW Carlsbad Energy Center that will
replace the Encina plant. The Carlsberg
Energy Center, in the latter stages of the
licensing process at the California Energy
Commission, will be a flexible fast-start
simple-cycle facility.
The Huntington Beach Desalination
Plant is still in the planning stage, but it
promises to supply Orange County also
with 50 million gallons of drinking water/
day. It will be located on the property adja-
cent to the AES Generating Station in
Huntington Beach. That generating station
will also be replaced by the 939-MW
Huntington Beach Energy Project which
was approved for licensing by the CEC in
October 2014.
The Orange County Water District
Board of Directors released a draft term
paper in March agreeing to buy Huntington
Beach’s desalinated drinking water from
Poseidon and will decide in mid-May on a
framework for the agreement with the com-
pany. Presumably, Southern California
Edison would supply power to the proposed
plant, but there has been no public
announcement confirming that.
According to Poseidon Water, recent
improvements in desalination technology
have resulted in reducing energy consump-
tion from 50% of the cost of plant operations
to 25% of operating costs, with the utiliza-
tion of pressure exchanger devices made
by Energy Recovery Inc. of San Leandro
California. Still, the plant will use 31.3 MW
to operate the desalination technology.
The energy savings will also reduce
carbon dioxide emissions by 41,000 metric
tons/year, roughly the amount of green-
house gas emissions 8,542 passenger vehi-
cles would produce, again according to
Poseidon Water.
Kiewit Shea is building the Carlsbad
plant under a fully-wrapped, turn-key fixed
price date-certain EPC contract including a
10-mile pipeline to connect the plant to San
Diego County Water Authority’s existing
distribution network.
IDE Technologies, headquartered in
Israel, will operate the Carlsbad plant. IDE
selected Protec Arisawa and Dow Water &
Process Solutions to provide the pressure
vessels and reverse osmosis membranes.
TWO CHALLENGES: DROUGHT & RENEWABLES
BY LYN CORUM,CLASS OF 2003
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