A new power plant designed to replace facilities that have generated electricity for Long Beach and beyond could be up and running by May 2020.
Power company AES Corp. on Friday held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the new natural gas-fueled power plant — officially named Alamitos Energy Center — at its construction site in East Long Beach between Studebaker Road and the San Gabriel River.
The existing power plant, which has equipment that has been in operation since the 1950s, is to remain functioning until the new project is completed. AES executives plan to have the old facilities demolished after construction wraps up.
Besides the power plant project, AES is still pursuing plans to build what the company is touting as the world’s largest battery-electric power storage facility on the company’s Long Beach grounds. AES executives have said the battery storage will enable the company to store power from solar or wind sources at time when the weather doesn’t favor alternative power sources, and AES Southland President Jennifer Didlo said during Friday’s event the new power plant won’t always be turned on.
“Units are only going to have to be running and producing emissions when they are absolutely needed,” she said. “They can start and stop multiple times a day. They can do it in minutes instead of hours and they can instantaneously change their output, which is exactly what we need as we bring more of Mother Nature’s energy and fuel into the system.”
Workers had already started tasks associated with Alamitos Energy Center’s construction prior to Friday’s event, and AES has also initiated work on another new power plant in Huntington Beach to replace an existing generating station in that city. The power company’s decisions to build new power plants in Long Beach and Huntington Beach follows a 2010 State Water Resources Control Board regulation that amounts to a near-ban on the use of seawater to cool power plants along the state’s coastline.
The California Energy Commission approved the new power plants in April.
In Long Beach, AES plans to have a plant capable of producing 640 megawatts of power running by May 2020, and the firm already has a deal in place to provide that energy to Southern California Edison. If AES later reaches an agreement with Edison for additional power, AES plans to build additional capacity capable of producing an additional 400 megawatts.
A megawatt is considered to be the quantity of power sufficient for 75 to 100 homes, according to regulators.
Besides the Alamitos Energy Center, AES has proposed to build a battery storage facility capable of holding up to 300 megawatts worth of energy.
AES’ director of sustainability and regulatory compliance Stephen O’Kane said after regulators granted approval for the new plants that the company was by then contracted to store 100 megawatts at the facility.
AES and Siemens announced earlier this month their formation of a new company called Fluence to provide energy-storage technology and services.
After Friday’s ceremony, Didlo said Fluence will likely supply the planned storage facility in Long Beach. Those plans may go before the Long Beach Planning Commission for approval in early August.
At the end of February, AES announced two energy storage facilities in San Diego County as being, combined, the world’s largest installation of lithium ion batteries for power storage. The two facilities can store 37.5 megawatts.
