Westlands Solar Park plan lands major investor

Published on 07/03/2014 - 11:27 am

Written by John Lindt

The proposed Westlands Solar Park has landed a major investor and a power-purchase agreement with the City of Anaheim. Los Angeles-based real estate investment firm CIM Group announced this week it has partnered with Westside Holdings, LLC, to invest in the proposed Westlands Solar Park — a master planned development located in a state competitive renewable energy zone that covers 24,000 acres.

That’s more than 37 square miles of treeless landscape, with little water and salt-laden soil — possibly the perfect place to assemble the power plant of the future.

The drainage-impaired ag lands are in Kings County within the Westlands Water District. Westside Holdings has an office in Visalia. The two groups announced a joint venture this week, but did not offer many details.

CIM Group may be an unfamiliar name in the Valley, but it is one of state’s largest real estate investment firms with billions of dollars tied up in commercial property across the US from Manhattan to San Francisco and Los Angeles. CIM owns the former Kodak Theater in Hollywood, now named the Dolby Theater where the Academy Awards are held. CIM also owns some 1.7 million square feet nearby. The urban real estate and infrastructure investment firm, founded in 1994, has more than $14.7 billion in assets under management, according to its website.

CIM’s infrastructure platform invests in utilities, natural resource projects, distribution networks/facilities, transportation infrastructure, communications systems, and social infrastructure projects that support urban communities. In Southern California, CIM is developing the Antelope Valley Water Storage Project, a water bank located adjacent to two of the largest north-south aqueducts in the state. CIM is also developing a solar project to sell power to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

CIM, through its affiliate SkyPower, is also one of the largest developers of solar energy projects in the world with a portfolio of 1,500 megawatts of solar projects in Canada and a $5 billion project in Africa.

Through several joint ventures SkyPower claims to have 25,000 megawatts of solar projects in the pipeline and existing contracts with utilities worth $4 billion, according to its website.

Westside Holdings has been working to master plan its selenium-tainted land just east of Interstate 5 since 2009, pushing to get regulators and utilities to consider this mid-state location astride the state’s major north-south electric transmission line. It is the right place, Westside Holdings argues, to build up to 2,400 megawatts of photovoltaic power over the next 10 or so years. It would be one of the world’s largest solar farms generating enough power to rival Diablo Power nuclear plant but without the negative baggage.

City of Anaheim commits

Though the project is to be phased over the long term, the solar park will get its first project next year at Avenal Cutoff and Avenue 25, just south of Naval Air Station Lemoore, with phased construction of a 2-megawatt project followed by a 20-megawatt solar farm.

The power for the first phase will be purchased by the City of Anaheim, the city confirmed this week, with the first current to be delivered in September 2015. So says Anaheim Assistant Manager for utilities Steve Sciortino: “We are really excited about the purchase of what could be even more renewable power coming from the Fresno area.”

The city needs 700 megawatts of power to keep the community — including Disneyland — lit up, with demand coming on strong right when the sun shines the most during the summer.

“Like all utilities, we need to keep buying more renewable power to comply with SB 32 and solar shines brightest in summer, when we need the peaking power,” Sciortino said.

California solar dominance

While Texas has some tall claims, California is the clear leader in new solar generation. In 2013, 2,145 megawatts of utility-scale solar capacity entered service in California, of which more than 500 megawatts came from large-scale solar thermal plants. California accounted for more than 75 percent of US utility-scale solar capacity installed in 2013.The scale of what could happen at this one location has clearly intrigued the CIM people, a group founded by two former Israeli paratroopers.

Just where the power projects get built in the state has been a thorny issue for years. While some developers favor the sunnier desert area, a number of key environmental groups object. Farm groups, on the other hand, have raised questions about building utility-size solar on prime Valley ag land. No such worries here. Westlands Solar Park has built a coalition supported by local, statewide and federal environmental interests as well as farming groups.

Environmental support

One major advocate is Carl Zichella, director of western transmission siting for environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. Zichella is among those who have lobbied energy regulators to look at the Westland Solar Park model to build out this energy farm on “arguably the least environmentally sensitive place in the state,” and yet creating opportunities “in one of the most economically distressed parts of the state.”

Adding both solar energy and more transmission here will be useful, he adds, to coordinate with the nearby Pacific Gas & Electric Co.-owned Helm pumped storage facility, making it useful for balancing the variable energy from Central Valley solar projects rather than firing up gas-powered plants. For instance, renewable electricity generated at the Tehachapi wind farms in the evenings could be balanced with the Valley’s daytime solar, and vice-versa, as needed. He said only two turbines at Helm can be used now.

With the news that CIM Group will be investing in the project, Zichella said: “This substantial financial backing is very big step toward making this happen.” He said he and others have been having conversations with Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration in hopes of his sup