Energy

Published on March 25th, 2011 | by Zachary Shahan

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Los Angeles Could Easily be a Solar-Powered City

UCLA’s Luskin Center has created a “Los Angeles Solar Atlas” showing the solar potential in Los Angeles County on a variety of different scales. It created solar maps for each city and zone in the county and for the jurisdiction of each of the county’s 7 utilities, as well as for the county as a whole.

Some key findings include that:

• Nearly 1.5 million rooftops throughout Los Angeles County could be used as solar power generators.
• On the whole, there’s currently enough potential roof space to create 19,000 MW from rooftop solar.
• The total rooftop solar potential for the city of Los Angeles is over 5,500 MW, which could power the city on most days. (The highest-ever peak in Los Angeles was 6,177.) Of course, the city must have more power capacity than is needed at peak times.

Now, if you took the solar potential from all of Los Angeles city’s parking lots into account as well, a reader over on CleanTechnica (where I initially wrote about this) has pointed out that it would have far more PV solar potential than is needed to power the city and provide the necessary backup capacity.

To ensure that the power stays on at night when the sun is down, in the case that storage options can’t live up to the task, the commenter, Bob Wallace, had another good suggestion as well:

“It can sell some of that extra solar north via the Pacific Intertie and get hydro-produced energy back at night from the Pacific Northwest.”

Looks like a plan — it sure would be cool to see the city pursue and achieve it. It would change my view of L.A.

Read more about the Los Angeles Solar Atlas on CleanTechnica:

Los Angeles Could be Solar Powered (Sort of), UCLA Study Finds

Or check out any of the solar maps here:

The full atlas can be downloaded [PDF — 92 MB], or you can download just the jurisdictions you’re interested in:

Countywide

• Los Angeles County (and by Supervisorial District)

Cities and Zones

• Los Angeles (and by Council District)
• Carson
• Commerce
• Downey
• Gardena
• Industry
• La Mirada
• Lancaster
• Long Beach
• Palmdale
• Pomona
• Santa Clarita
• Santa Fe Springs
• Torrance
• West Covina

Utilities

• Azusa Light & Power Service
• Burbank Water & Power Service
• Cerritos Electric Utility Service
• Glendale Water & Power Service
• Pasadena Water & Power Service
• Southern California Edison
• Vernon Light & Power Service

MAKE SOLAR WORK FOR YOU! Next, use your Solar Report to get the best quote!

Tags: CA, California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County, Los Angeles rooftop solar atlas, los angeles solar, Los Angeles solar atlas, Los Angeles solar energy, Los Angeles solar power, rooftop solar atlas, solar, solar atlas, solar energy, solar energy Los Angeles, solar Los Angeles, solar power, solar power Los Angeles, UCLA

About the Author

Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave, a world-leading green and science news site. He has been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and he has been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, and wind energy since 2009. Aside from his work on CleanTechnica and Planetsave, he's the founder and director of Solar Love, EV Obsession, and Bikocity. To connect with Zach on some of your favorite social networks, go to ZacharyShahan.com and click on the relevant buttons.

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