Kern County Energy Fueling California for a Sustainable Future

Lorelei H. Oviatt, AICP Director

Kern County Planning And Community Development Department

661-862-8866 Loreleio@co.kern.ca.us August 3, 2015

http://www.co.kern.ca.us/planning/renewable_energy.asp

Kern County Energy Sources

Oil and Natural Gas Wind Solar – Photovoltaic and Thermal Alternative Fuels Biodiesel Geothermal

Kern County Renewable Energy Goal

Adopted by Board of Supervisors Feb 22, 2011 10,000 MW or 10 GW in production by 2015

County wide – cities, school and water districts

9723 MW permitted

270 MW in process

10,OOO MW by 2015

8,000 construction jobs

1,500 operational jobs

$25 billion investment in Kern County Power for over 7 million people $150 million in new property tax revenue

RENEWABLE PERMITTING

WE ( Wind Energy ) Combining DistrictCommercial Scale Wind – Established standards

Solar – onsite use - groundmount – Bldg permit

Solar – Utility Scale –Conditional Use Permit

Source: Kern County, California

Energy

Oil and Natural GasChevron renewed focus on Kern River field

Produced 2 billion barrels since 1899 New technology = another 1.5 billion barrels Reduced decline from 7% a year to 2% a year Occidential Petroleum – Largest Find in 35 years 500 million barrels of oil - $280 Million Gas plant

Natural Gas Ten Section Storage Project – 32.5 billion cubic feet Largest Natural gas baseload power plants in California

Lessons Learned

New Substations need to be designed for multiple interconnections – Plug and Play

Uncoordinated private connection lines inefficient and duplicative

Need CAISO flexibility for connection point changes

Future transmission planning disconnected from land use projections

Lessons Learned

Environmental review on Solar CEQA reform for cumulative impacts – site specific low impact- standard conditions could work

Property tax exemption = disincentive for commercial scale solar

Logical place may not be best place