MOJAVE – On Tuesday, August 5, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) celebrated the completion of its Eland Solar-plus-Storage Center Project, which is expected to power more than 266,000 households in the city.
Mayor Karen Bass praised the project at a news conference in Mojave, an unincorporated community in Kern County about 84 miles north of Los Angeles. She stated that the facility will help the city transition to 100% clean energy by 2035.
“In Los Angeles, we have some extremely ambitious clean energy goals. “We plan to achieve 98% clean energy by the end of this decade and 100% by 2035,” Bass stated. “Today marks a significant milestone in achieving these objectives. This is Los Angeles’ clean energy transition.
“This is how we power our city and the world into the future, and this is how we build a greener, more sustainable city to protect Angelenos for generations to come,” the mayor said.
The Eland Solar and Storage Center spans more than 4,600 acres of desert. Eland’s massive facility consists of 1.3 million solar panels and 172 storage batteries.
“The Eland project represents what we need to achieve this objective – scale, energy storage, reliability and innovation – while demonstrating what is possible when public and private sectors partner to benefit our city,” says Janisse Quinones, CEO of LADWP.
“This project has had the lowest cost for solar and storage, translating to a more affordable bill for our LADWP customers,” she informed us.
The project’s first phase ended in December 2024. On Tuesday, officials marked the end of the second phase. Both projects connect to the power grid through the LADWP’s Barren Ridge Switching Station, providing 7% of the utility’s energy portfolio.
According to the LADWP, the fully operational Eland facility has the potential to generate more than 1,170 megawatts of renewable energy for LA. All energy produced by the project will be sold to Southern California Public Power Authority (SCPPA) participants, including the LADWP.
The project began in 2019 when the Los Angeles City Council approved two power purchase agreements, allowing Arevon Energy Inc., Eland’s developer, owner, and operator, to produce both phases of the project.
Daniel Garcia, SCPPA’s executive director, thanked the LADWP and the city for their leadership on the project.
“Over my 40 years of experience, to bring a project of this size to the grid is nearly impossible,” says Garcia. “This is nearly 800 megawatts of solar, and I believe 300 megawatts of battery storage. That is unusual in today’s marketplace.”
