For the past several years, my colleagues and I have been working on the water and energy connection -- specifically, the California Energy Commission’s conclusion that water systems consume 19 percent of California’s total electricity use. Increasingly, this connection is shaping the thinking of water agencies. This encouraging story in the San Diego Union-Tribune summarizes how water agencies are responding with a water/energy connection of their own – solar power.
Agencies like the San Diego County Water Authority and the Inland Empire Utilities Agency are making dramatic progress in constructing solar facilities to help meet their energy needs. According to Martha Davis, of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, “When you come back to the individual water agencies, energy tends to be their No. 1 or No. 2 controllable cost.” Particularly in Southern California, water agencies have high energy bills and acres of flat, sunny roofs on buildings and water tanks. Increasingly, they’re covering those roofs with solar panels, saving customers money, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and reducing the carbon footprint of Southern California water use.
* * * This post originally appeared on NRDC's Switchboard.
Barry Nelson is the director of the California Vision Project for NRDC’s Water Program, where we work to protect rivers, lakes, estuaries and fisheries, and to promote improved water management practices that can meet human needs and adapt to the likely impacts of global warming. NRDC is a non-profit organization dedicated to protecting the environment, people and animals. NRDC was founded in 1970 and is comprised of more than 300 lawyers, scientists and policy experts, with more than one million members and e-activists.
