ABSTRACT:
This document presents the results of an area definition and siting analysis accomplished in support of the Solar Thermal Conversion Mission Analysis Study for the National Science Foundation. The objectives of this effort were twofold. It was necessary first to define and characterize the Southern California study region and, second, to identify the area within the region judged to be potentially suitable for siting solar power plants. The boundaries of the Southern California Study region were chosen to conform to the state boundaries on the west, south, and east and with the limits of the Southern California Edison Company service territory on the north. This region contains a wide variety of climatological and geological conditions and is served by three major electrical utilities. The Southern California Edison Company is a large private regional utility, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is a large municipal utility, and the San Diego Gas and Electric Company is a private utility serving a large metropolitan load center. Land area was identified as potentially suitable by the sequential application of technical and institutional exclusion criteria then identifying those locations which were not excluded by any of the criteria. Between 5,000 and 15,000 square miles out of a total of 67, 000 square miles within the study region were found to be potentially suitable for siting large, central-station solar power plants. The variation in the estimate of the potentially suitable area is derived from the use of alternative seismic criteria. The amount of potentially suitable area, even if only fractionally used for collecting and converting solar energy, is sufficient in size to supply a substantial part of the projected Southern California needs for electric energy in the year 2000. However, the locations of suitable areas are nearly all in the eastern portions of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. In this area, the amount of water likely to be available for condenser cooling is considerably short of the amount required to fully develop all of the suitable area with present cooling tower performance. This difficult problem is not easily solved and may require some power plants to use condenser cooling without water consumption, through the use of dry cooling towers.