California Water News Daily Your Source For Water News in California
Cadiz, Inc. has partnered with Scale Microgrids (“Scale”) to develop clean energy microgrids for the Cadiz Water Conservation and Storage Project (“Water Project”) in the Mojave Desert.
Cadiz, a water solutions company with one of the largest farming operations in San Bernardino County, currently manages a groundwater basin in the Mojave Desert using diesel generators to power an off-grid wellfield that spans across thousands of acres. The solar-hybrid microgrids designed by Scale for Cadiz will combine ground mount Solar PV, battery storage, and advanced, high-efficiency distributed generation that can lower energy costs by more than 30%, provide 100% uptime reliability and cut carbon emissions by more than 75%.
“Microgrid technology has improved to the point where shifting to clean energy is now the most cost-effective way to operate off-grid,” said Susan Kennedy, Executive Chair of Cadiz “Our mission is to deliver clean, reliable and affordable water to people. Scale’s solar-hybrid microgrid systems can give us the reliability we need at significantly lower cost while reducing emissions as much as 75%, demonstrating that clean energy and clean water go hand-in-hand.”
“Scale and Cadiz have strong compatibility when it comes to being mission-driven and aligned in the vision of a world where water resources are sustainably managed and available to all, equitably,” says Ryan Goodman, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer at Scale. “We continue to be committed to deploying cleaner and more reliable power across California at record speed, with water infrastructure being a critical priority.”
In April, Cadiz announced that it completed construction of three new groundwater wells as part of the Water Project, which will capture 50,000 acre-feet per year of surplus groundwater before it evaporates in the desert and make it available to communities by constructing pipelines in railroad corridors and converting natural gas pipelines to transport water. The Cadiz wellfield and infrastructure will provide both reliable new supply during extreme drought periods and underground storage during extreme wet periods.
Cadiz expects to have between 25-30 production wells in operation when the Water Project is fully constructed. The Company’s 220-mile Northern Pipeline, an unused natural gas pipeline that will be converted to carry water, will transport 11 million tons of water each year to remote and underserved communities across Southern California. “It takes a lot of energy to produce and move that much water,” Kennedy said. “With Scale’s clean energy microgrid design, we will be able to deliver that water reliably, sustainably and cost-effectively.”
Scale’s proposed state-of-the-art clean energy microgrid design will outfit each well with a 1,120 kW ground-mount solar PV system, 693 kW/2664 kWh battery energy storage system, 380 kW of ultra-low emission generation, tied together with smart controls and a switchboard. The microgrid and advanced control technology will enable remote monitoring, provide 100% uptime reliability and lower maintenance costs over the life of the systems.
