This week, we once again revisit the “Catalina History That Never Was” department and an intriguing project proposed by Southern California Edison back in 1980 that, alas, never came to be.
In past columns in this same category, I’ve written about great plans of yore of an often negative nature that (fortunately) never came to be: the plans to build a nuclear power plant near the East End quarry (or at one point possibly Ben Weston Beach!) as well as a number of plans over the years to turn Avalon into one huge strip mall.
This week, we once again revisit the “Catalina History That Never Was” department and an intriguing project proposed by Southern California Edison back in 1980 that, alas, never came to be.
In past columns in this same category, I’ve written about great plans of yore of an often negative nature that (fortunately) never came to be: the plans to build a nuclear power plant near the East End quarry (or at one point possibly Ben Weston Beach!) as well as a number of plans over the years to turn Avalon into one huge strip mall.
And, of course, who could forget the plans back in the 1960s to actually dig a canal across the Isthmus connecting Cat Harbor with Isthmus Harbor in an effort to spare yachtsmen the grueling and death-defying voyage around the Island’s West End?
But this entry in our “history that never was” department was at least more environmentally-conscious, and that was the proposal by Edison to build a rather extensive solar collection array on Catalina.
Identified as the “Small Community Solar Experimental Power Plant,” the project was to consist of up to 60 parabolic dishes, each one about 40 feet in diameter.
What was described as “energy conversion equipment” was to be installed at the focal point of each dish.
The 1,000-kilowatt project, which was initiated by the U.S. Department of Energy, placed Catalina Island alongside a desert location near Blythe as the two locations offered up by Edison.
The project was to be funded by the DOE and was to be the first of its kind in the nation.
The project was going to play as much of an experimental role as a practical, energy-producing role.
According to Tony Fung, then-project director for Edison, this first plant would “provide research and development knowledge necessary for design organization of future commercial small solar power plants.”
The experimental station, however, would have also had the added benefit of providing energy to Avalon’s power grid, or to that of the city of Blythe in the event the desert location was chosen.
Depending on the final plan for the installation, it was suggested that such a plant could provide as much as 3 million kilowatt-hours per year, which would have amounted to about one-third of the power needs of Avalon at the time.
Fung added that, “Such deployment of solar energy will provide some relief to our nation’s heavy dependence on expensive, imported oil.”
My, how things haven’t changed.
Former Avalon Mayor Rudy Piltch remembers a number of similar projects from that time period, none of which really ever came to fruition.
“They (Edison) explored a number of things,” he said. “I think they were genuinely looking for ways to improve the utility system here and make it more affordable for everybody.”
Rudy personally escorted a number of visiting officials from not only Edison, but government and educational institutions as well.
“I took them to several different places around the island,” he said. “They looked at a variety of places where they could place solar systems. One of them was a floating system that could go into the (Thompson) reservoir. They were looking for places where they could place them without doing too much environmental damage.”
It wasn’t just solar power they were after.
Rudy recalls efforts to develop wind power on the Island as well.
“They studied a variety of sites around the Island to try to determine what the average wind speeds were,” he said.
“We all used to think the Isthmus had the most wind, but it turned out to be Ben Weston Point.”
As with the plans to develop wind power, the plans to develop a solar plant on the Island didn’t so much go out with a bang, but rather eventually fizzled out.
Catalina was bypassed for the plan and even Blythe only recently got its own solar-generating station. Today, as has been the case for decades, the Island’s electricity continues to be generated by diesel-powered electric generators at the Pebbly Beach Generating Station.
