Water contractors can expect to pay between 1% to 3% more for the energy it takes to bring supplies down the state through California’s largest project thanks to just one renewable energy project that came online recently in Kern County – the Pastoria Solar Project.
And that’s just the beginning.
When the Department of Water Resources (DWR) brings on enough renewable energy projects to fully power the State Water Project (SWP), contractors can expect their costs to increase another 10% to 20%, according to a presentation at the May 20 California Water Commission meeting by DWR Manager of Power Operations Jorge Quintero.
Quintero said 45% of the power needed for the SWP is currently coming from renewables, including the project’s own hydro electricity. The department has contracted for renewable projects to provide another 11% of its power needs. 
That means DWR has to find renewable energy projects for the remaining 44% of its power needs.
Quintero estimated it would cost between $35 million and $40 million a year to fill that remaining 44% need, increasing energy costs to contractors by another 10% to 20%.
And it has to happen fast per Senate Bill 1203, which mandates state agencies achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2035 – just nine years from now. 
“I’d be lying if I said this wasn’t a big concern,” said Jonathan Young, energy manager for the State Water Contractors association. “We didn’t oppose the 2035 mandate but we did voice our concerns.”
Because DWR is using long-term power purchase agreements to lock in how much it pays for the power, that does give contractors a greater degree of cost certainty, Young said.
“Anything that adds certainty, adds value,” Young said. 
DWR declined to say how much it’s paying for power produced by the 100-megawatt Pastoria Solar Project, which came online in late April. The state keeps that information under wraps for three years in order not to undermine future contract negotiations, according to a DWR spokesperson.
The spokesperson would only say that DWR’s 20-year purchase agreement for Pastoria’s solar power is “competitive,” but more than $1 per megawatt hour, as had been reported in other media.
Time and money will be tight to meet SB 1203’s mandates.
The Pastoria Solar Project, DWR’s largest solar investment so far, took four or five years from the first request-for-proposal to flipping the switch, according to John Yarbrough, Deputy Director of the SWP.
The department needs another 400 megawatts – or four more Pastoria facilities – to fill its remaining power needs. 
In the meantime, DWR and contractors are trying to control power demands, and costs, by operating the SWP in a more flexible manner depending on other needs on the grid. And many contractors are installing their own solar facilities, Young said during the May 20 California Water Commission meeting.
He told SJV Water that power is just one of many cost concerns for contractors including combatting invasive golden mussels and subsidence (land sinking) beneath the California Aqueduct.
“And we didn’t even get into SGMA,” he said referring to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which mandates farmers bring over pumped aquifers into balance by 2040.
Those, and other, costs were cited recently as several Kern County agricultural water districts have significantly reduced their participation levels in funding the planning and pre-construction phase of the Delta Conveyance Project, a tunnel that would bring Sacramento River water beneath the ecologically sensitive Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to be exported south.
The SWP is the state’s largest single electricity consumer, using between 2.5 million and 9.5 million megawatt hours a year, depending on how much water it’s moving. It moves water more than 700 miles from northern to southern California, hoisting it 2,882 feet up and over the Tehachapi mountains in Kern County.
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