Many people aren’t aware that water providers are often big polluters – it takes a lot of energy to pump and move water.
After adding enough solar to power its wastewater plant, San Antonio’s utility, CPS Energy, made the process much cleaner and also catapulted the city to the top in Texas for solar.
San Antonio now has 34 megawatts (MW) of solar installed.
The 20 MW solar field at the Dos Rios Water Recycling Center is one of many projects the utility has planned by 2020, to meet its goal of 1500 MW of renewable energy.
It already has 1059 MW of wind and has another 10 MW solar system just about done. Another 400 MW of solar, under negotiation with OCI Solar, will be spread over a range of locations.
Including both wind and solar is important for diversification, and with solar prices at such lows, that’s where the emphasis is now.
In fact, because water suppliers are so energy intensive, their biggest cost is energy.
For that reason, SunPower (SPWR) has been having success in marketing solar to water utilities. It’s installed more than 25 solar arrays at water plants, which tend to also have the space for such systems. Utilities have the same options as any other customer – they can either own the system or sign a power purchase agreement to lock in low, long term electricity prices.
A 1 MW solar system at Rancho California Water District in Riverside County, California, for example, supplies 55% of the electricity at the pump station and almost 100% at its district headquarters, saving about $4.3 million over the next 20 years.
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