Environmental Considerations
Avenal Power Center's Avenal Energy project will make a substantial contribution to California's energy needs, which in recent years has been characterized by outages and other problems caused by an aging electric generation and transmission system.
Nonetheless, special measures have been taken to address the potential impact of this essential infrastructure project on the environment. The project will be built away from residences and businesses, employ state-of-the-art air-cooled generating equipment fueled by clean natural gas and reuse its process wastewater.
Land use: Avenal Energy is planned in an industrially zoned location east of the Kettleman Hills, near existing gas, water and electric transmission infrastructure facilities and six miles from Avenal's residential and business areas. Current land use at the project site is irrigated agriculture, as is the surrounding land use. Thus, there will be minimal construction-related environmental impacts to the immediate area.
Click here for map showing the project's location.
Water conservation: Avenal Power Center's Avenal Energy project will be air-cooled (dry cooling process) and will utilize water recycling equipment to reduce water consumption
The City of Avenal would provide untreated water to the project from the City's water treatment plant adjacent to the site. Groundwater from three local wells would provide a backup water source to the project via two separate pipelines totaling less than 1.4 miles in length.
The proposed project would recycle water to the maximum extent possible through the use of a zero liquid discharge facility (ZLDF) to further minimize water consumption and eliminate wastewater discharge. The ZLDF will purify and recycle process water. This greatly minimizes water consumption and eliminates process-associated wastewater discharge.
Plant noise: Equipment design includes noise attenuation technology that will not only contribute to a safe working environment within the plant but will also ensure compliance with local noise standards.
Air quality: Equipment to control emissions to the air will be provided in accordance with the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District's BACT (Best Available Control Technology) requirements. The project design, construction and operation also includes a concentrated program to control the generation of dust so as not to affect surrounding agricultural operations.