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L.A. to Buy More Geothermal Power From Northern Nevada

By Chris Clarke
March 11, 2013
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The Gabbs Valley will supply Los Angeles with geothermal power | Photo: Ken Lund/Flickr/Creative Commons License

 

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) is set to start buying electricity from a new geothermal generating station in northern Nevada, DWP announced today on Twitter. Unless the Los Angeles City Council decides to intervene in the next few days, 13.71 megawatts of power from the Wild Rose Geothermal Facility near Gabbs, NV will start flowing toward L.A.'s grid in January 2014.

 
The 20-year power purchase agreement, which is part of a deal that also involves Burbank's municipal electrical utility, will set DWP back $99 per megawatt-hour, for an anticipated cost of $11 million a year.

The DWP's announcement came in low-key form Monday morning on Twitter:

The 35-megawatt Wild Rose facility, owned by the geothermal firm Ormat, is now under construction in Mineral County, Nevada west of Gabbs. Approved by the BLM only a few months ago, the plant is expected to begin generating power late this year.

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