In a move Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti called “a major step” in the fight against pollution and greenhouse gases, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is cutting its use of dirty coal by selling off its share of a coal-fired energy plant in Arizona.
The DWP has officially divested its ownership of the Arizona facility in a transaction that is expected to reduce the Los Angeles area utility’s dependence on coal energy, officials said.
The sale of LADWP’s 21 percent share in the Navajo Generating Station was approved last summer, and became official on July 1.
The divestment reduces the amount of coal-fired sources in LADWP’s energy portfolio from 40 percent to 30 percent, and should cut the utility’s green house gas emissions by about 5.39 million metric tons during a span of over three years, officials said.
Mayor Eric Garcetti Thursday called the sale a “major step toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions and securing L.A.’s clean energy future.”
The shares were sold to the Navajo Generating Station’s owner, Salt River Project, for $15 million and 158 megawatts of Eldorado transmission rights, which can be used to import renewable energy.
The 477 megawatts of energy LADWP had been receiving from the Navajo Generating Station will be made up through renewable sources and increasing energy efficiency, which will be backed up by a natural gas power source located just outside of the Los Angeles basin, utility officials said.
The LADWP is negotiating the transition of another energy generating station — the Utah-based Intermountain Power Plant — from coal to cleaner fuel sources by 2025.
—City News Service