Solar · Analysis

The solar LA is building on the land it bought for water

LADWP owns much of the Owens Valley, land acquired a century ago for the aqueduct. Now the city is putting panels on it, and Inyo County wants to know what the valley gets.

BY THE RENEWABLE ENERGY LA EDITORS · FILED OCTOBER 30, 2026 · 6 MIN READ ·

Land bought for water, asked to make power

LADWP's Owens Valley holdings run to something on the order of 300,000 acres, a large share of the valley floor, per the utility's own land descriptions. Most of it is leased for cattle grazing or simply left open. The appeal for solar is plain: the ground is already owned, it is flat and bright, and it sits near the transmission lines (the high-voltage wires that carry power over long distances) that already run beside the aqueduct toward the city.

The Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch, proposed near Lone Pine, is the headline project, sized in the range of a few hundred megawatts at last public description (a megawatt is roughly enough to power a few hundred homes at a given moment, depending on the hour and the weather). LADWP frames it as part of the city's push to reach 100 percent carbon-free electricity by 2035, a target the City Council set and the federal LA100 study examined. The timeline, like most big energy projects, has moved more than once.

The strange case of Owens Lake

At the valley's south end sits the oddest piece of this story. When the aqueduct pulled the Owens River south, Owens Lake dried to a bed of exposed alkali flats, and for decades it ranked as the single largest source of PM10 (fine airborne dust, particles under 10 microns across, small enough to lodge in your lungs) in the United States. Under orders enforced by the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, LADWP has spent on the order of $2 billion controlling that dust, mostly through shallow flooding, gravel, and managed plants.

Some of that same lakebed is now in the conversation for solar. The idea of putting panels over parts of the dust-control area is appealing on paper, since the land is disturbed already and close to infrastructure. Whether it pencils out is less certain: dust control and solar make different demands on the same ground and water, and the air district has to sign off on anything that touches the cells it regulates. This desk would treat any firm acreage or output figure as provisional until the filings are public.

Who sits at the table

Every player here carries a long history. Inyo County and LADWP have argued over water since before most readers were born, and the county's planning department reviews solar siting through permits, environmental review, and public hearings. Ranchers who hold grazing leases on LADWP land worry about losing ground to panels. Residents and visitors worry about viewsheds, the open sweep toward Mount Whitney and the Sierra crest that draws people to the Eastern Sierra in the first place.

Underneath it all is a simple question for Inyo County: what does the valley get? The power is bound for Los Angeles, not for Lone Pine or Independence. Local benefit, whether through lease revenue, construction jobs, county tax arrangements, or a share of the electricity, is the ground on which these projects will be fought and, possibly, settled. LADWP says it wants local input; residents have heard the city make promises before.

Worth watching this month

1. LADWP board meeting agendas and the Southern Owens Valley Solar Ranch project page, where any firm size, schedule, or contract would appear first.

2. The Inyo County Planning Commission calendar, for hearings on solar conditional-use permits and environmental review documents, which is where local objections get formally logged.

3. The Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District's Owens Lake updates, for any sign that solar on the dust-control cells is moving from idea to application.

4. The city's progress reports toward its 2035 carbon-free goal, which shape how hard LADWP pushes desert and valley projects (routine paperwork, but it sets the pace).

5. Grazing lease renewals and any notices to ranchers, usually a quiet item, but often the first concrete sign of land shifting from pasture to panels.

Where this dispatch reads

LADWP, power and sustainability pages (utility), www.ladwp.com, The utility's own site, where project size, schedule, and board actions for Owens Valley solar are posted first.
Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District, Owens Lake program (regional air regulator), www.gbuapcd.org, The agency that enforces dust control at Owens Lake and must review any work on the lakebed cells.
Inyo County Planning Department (county government), www.inyocounty.us/services/planning, Hearings, permits, and environmental review documents for solar siting in the valley.
California Energy Commission (.gov), www.energy.ca.gov, State agency tracking California's power supply and clean-energy targets.
NREL LA100 study (.gov, U.S. Department of Energy lab), www.nrel.gov/analysis/la100.html, The federal modeling study behind LA's 100 percent carbon-free-by-2035 goal.

Questions readers have asked

Is my LADWP power actually coming from the Owens Valley today?

Some of it, in a growing but still modest share. Most LADWP power still comes from a mix of in-basin gas, large solar and wind elsewhere in the desert Southwest, and other sources. Owens Valley solar is an expanding piece, not the whole picture.

Does LADWP really own that much land up there?

Yes. The utility holds on the order of 300,000 acres in the Owens Valley, bought mostly in the early 1900s for the aqueduct. Much of it has been leased for grazing ever since.

Will solar on Owens Lake make the dust problem worse?

It is not clear, and that is the honest answer. Dust control and solar use the same land and water differently, so any project there needs the Great Basin air district's review before it moves. Treat confident claims in either direction with caution.

Why build so far from LA instead of on rooftops in the basin?

Both are happening. Rooftop solar across the basin's homes keeps growing, but large desert and valley arrays add power at a scale rooftops cannot match quickly, and LADWP already owns the Owens Valley land.