powering an oil field: leave it to the sun

Thanks to California’s abundant sunshine, Chevron is reducing CO2 emissions associated with oil production at our Lost Hills oil field in Southern California.

The 29-megawatt solar plant at Lost Hills, developed by Chevron and SunPower and now owned by Goldman Sachs Renewable Power, celebrates two years of operation in April 2022. California’s largest net energy metering project and Chevron’s largest solar facility, the plant supplies approximately 80% of the oil field’s annual energy demand.

“This relationship with SunPower will help us deliver domestic energy resources Californians need with a smaller environmental footprint, aligning with SJVBU’s vision to be the best energy producer in California, for California,” said Molly Laegeler, vice president of our San Joaquin Valley Business Unit.

Using solar power enables Chevron to reduce consumption of grid power and helps us lower our carbon intensity, as we will hope to receive environmental credits under California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

• 75 GWh – the amount of energy the solar plant supplies Chevron each year.
• 89,189 – the number of high-efficiency, single-axis tracking PV modules that make up the solar plant.
• 220 acres – the area of Chevron land on which the solar plant is installed.
• 22,500 – the approximate number of metric tonnes of LCFS credits that the solar plant generates per year.