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Executive Summary

THE CHALLENGE

Cities and countries across the world are struggling to deal with the devastating effects of climate change and to curb their contribution to this global crisis.

For decades, the City of Los Angeles – home to more than 4 million people – has been synonymous with the smog and sprawl at the heart of this crisis. In 2004, the City emitted over 50 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere – more than the entire country of Sweden. One-third of the emissions came from the municipally owned Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), which today draws 76 percent of its energy from the fossil fuels of coal and natural gas.

Confronted with the reality that climate change diminishes the quality of life for everyone who lives and works in America’s second largest city, in 2007 Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa released the Green LA initiative in 2007 to reduce the City’s carbon emissions to 35 percent below 1990 levels. The cornerstone of the aggressive plan is to increase LADWP’s Renewables Portfolio Standard to 35 percent by 2020. Under the Mayor’s tenure, LADWP has more than tripled its renewable energy portfolio in less than 4 years to 10 percent.

The City’s peak electricity demand particularly from residential customers has risen to all-time highs in Los Angeles, while stricter state regulations have added pressure on the City to move quickly to diversify its energy mix away from carbon based energy resources. The City now faces a challenge to find a path to reliable, renewable energy on a system-wide scale.

MEETING THE CHALLENGE: SOLAR LA

The answer to this challenge lies partially in the source of our City’s problem: The 276 days of sunshine in Los Angeles. While long, hot summer days drive peak energy demand, the sun’s power and our climate make solar power Los Angeles’ most abundant natural resource.

Solar LA seeks to harness this power by laying out a far-reaching course of action to create a 1.3 gigawatt solar network of residential, commercial and municipally-owned solar energy systems.

Solar LA is simply the largest solar plan undertaken by any single city in the world – with the utility-owned portion of the plan alone representing more solar capacity than in all of California today. By 2020, the plan will lower carbon emissions in Los Angeles and increase the City’s solar portfolio by nearly 100-fold.

Solar LA also represents a major opportunity to turn environmental solutions into economic opportunities for Angelenos by investing in and stimulating the local economy. When every 10 megawatt (MW) of solar can create 200 to 400 jobs, the opportunity for green-collar jobs in Los Angeles is substantial and reaches across a broad range of occupations: research and development, manufacturing, installation, maintenance and repair.

The Solar LA plan consists of three primary components: Programs to boost residential and commercial customer solar systems; LADWP-owned solar projects in Los Angeles; and large-scale solar projects located outside the Los Angeles basin.


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