Q&A with Louis Ting, Orange County Power Authority Director of Power Resources

Q: What exactly does a Director of Power Resources do?

In short, I ensure that supply meets demand. Orange County Power Authority (OCPA) has 175,000-plus connected customers, and the Director of Power Resources makes sure they have power when they need it.

We don’t own the power infrastructure, so I secure all the energy and capacity. That spans the amount of energy customers are using 24/7 a day, 365 days a year, all the way to peak power demand on the hottest days of the year.

Q: You have three decades of experience managing power and water projects for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP). How did that prepare you for helping OCPA do its part in transitioning us to a clean energy future?

My experience at the LADWP has given me an incredibly comprehensive understanding of how power is generated and transmitted, along with deep experience dealing with infrastructure, upgrades, and new builds.

For us to generate and transmit reliably at OCPA, we work with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) to ensure that supply and demand are balanced. The LADWP is its own balancing authority with almost one-tenth of the state’s entire power demand and over 20 percent of California’s transmission (!).

For OCPA’s member cities of Irvine, Fullerton, and Buena Park, I am fortunate to understand how to provide them with the reliable and renewable power they need. And that’s what makes OCPA so great. We’re not here to make a profit like the investor-owned utilities. We’re not even like municipal-owned utilities like LADWP where they need to think about balancing the grid. We are here solely to serve the customer and bring more renewable energy, efficiency programs, and clean energy generation projects to their service areas. It’s a really refreshing shift. 

Q: What are the top opportunities and challenges for securing additional clean energy resources for OCPA customers?

Even in California where the sun is constantly shining and where communities are rapidly adopting community choice aggregation (CCA), deploying renewable energy is a challenge. When I was at LADWP, we built our own wind farm in the Mojave Desert and I was deployed out there for two and a half years building 90 wind turbines, 1.5 megawatts each (135MW total). It is incredibly difficult – from permitting, to wind resources, to environmental and terrain challenges. Not to mention transporting the turbines and connecting them to the electric grid. It required significant effort.

It will take policymakers and stakeholders working together, collaborating on infrastructure needs and finding common ground to get projects deployed. Once the shared understanding is there, we’ll see significantly more clean energy projects in California.

Q: Are there any promising new renewable procurement sources, or is the focus on maximizing solar and wind generation?

OCPA is looking into geothermal and using Clean Power Alliance, another California CCA, as a model because they recently signed a long-term geothermal contract in Utah. With more federal support and other private capital investment, I think more technology will be developed to make geothermal even more efficient.

There are other new technologies out there that require less infrastructure and produce a smaller carbon footprint. We are definitely looking at all possibilities, including repowering the old wind turbines at the Mojave Desert wind farms I mentioned. Now instead of 1.5 megawatts each, they can easily get 50% more energy. That’s an excellent opportunity right there!

At OCPA, we just received Board approval for a solar and battery project in San Bernardino that will be at the sweet spot of our interconnection and secure our 20-year resource. The good thing about OCPA is that we are still growing our customer base, which means we need to align renewable project procurement as we grow.

Q: Any takeaways from what others in the community-choice energy space have done that may influence you going forward at OCPA? It’s exciting to see what other CCAs are doing to support their unique communities. Clean Power Alliance started offering solar and battery incentives again, which none of the investor-owned utilities are offering to residential customers. And Peninsula Clean Energy has a really innovative solar program – they’re building solar on government properties and securing a 30 percent “direct pay” through the federal Inflation Reduction Act that goes directly to the government entity. That’s not only innovative, it’s also incredibly beneficial for the customer. I would love to create something like that at OCPA, and I think we can do it!

About Orange County Power Authority

The Orange County Power Authority is a not-for-profit public agency that offers clean power at competitive rates, significantly reducing energy-related greenhouse emissions and enabling reinvestment in local energy programs. To learn more, visit www.ocpower.org.