Using Demographic Data to Predict Socioeconomic Impacts

Using demographic and economic data, it is possible to hypothesize how future utility-scale solar facilities may affect Lucerne Valley and El Centro. For example, using information about population, median income, age, and education is useful for understanding how a community may benefit from construction jobs at a solar facility. Furthermore, statistics describing the area’s housing market could indicate if a community is able to provide a suitable housing stock for the hundreds of workers needed to construct a utility-scale solar facility.

Much of the data used in this document, including all of the housing data, comes from the U.S. Census 2000, and hence is somewhat dated. Regardless of how these statistics have changed over the last decade, this information is still helpful in comparing localities to one another and for demonstrating how this data may be used to predict future impacts (Table 1).

Effects on the Local Labor Pool and Rental Housing Market
By comparing population, income, education, and age demographics among Boulder City, Lucerne Valley, and El Centro, we can gauge what costs and benefits the latter two communities may experience with regards to the local labor pool and rental housing market if a utility-scale solar facility was built nearby. A community will obviously benefit if its workers are hired at the facility. However, the area may incur costs if the labor pool cannot satisfy the workforce demand and the area’s rental housing market cannot accommodate workers who move to the area.

Generally, Boulder City’s workers did not benefit from Nevada Solar One, the primary reason being that Boulder City residents must compete for jobs with metro Las Vegas’ extensive workforce. It is also possible to infer why by interpreting the city’s demographic data. Boulder City’s high median annual income and high percentage of educated individuals may reflect a population uninterested in construction work and/or lacking the skills needed to fill such positions.

An interpretation of demographic data may also explain why Boulder City’s rental housing market was largely unaffected by Nevada Solar One’s construction. For instance, Boulder City has a small percentage of rental housing stock. A conversation with a Boulder City community development planner suggests the city’s rental market is tight and expensive in comparison to rental housing stock in the nearby Las Vegas metropolitan region. Individuals who moved to the area to build Nevada Solar One found a greater variety of housing with cheaper rent outside Boulder City.

Lucerne Valley
Demographic information from Lucerne Valley sheds light on what costs and benefits the area might experience if a solar facility is constructed nearby. Lucerne Valley’s workforce may benefit from unskilled labor jobs created during facility construction. This hypothesis is based on the community’s low levels of education; Lucerne Valley’s percentage of adults 25 years of age or older with at least one year of college (33 percent) lags behind both the state (50 percent) and national (45 percent) averages, which suggests the community workforce may be interested in unskilled work.³

However, the possibility that Lucerne Valley residents would benefit from solar facility jobs diminishes when considering the competing labor pools in the area and the number of jobs the facility is predicted to create. Lucerne Valley residents will have to compete with workers in three nearby population centers: Victorville, Apple Valley, and Hesperia. Furthermore, Chevron’s facility is expected to create 45 construction jobs and up to three operation and maintenance (O&M) jobs, hardly a job creation boon for the area.⁴ Though Lucerne Valley’s workforce will not greatly benefit from the small number of jobs, this minimal job creation also means that the community’s rental housing market will not be unduly stressed. Even if all 45 of Chevron’s construction workers were to move to Lucerne Valley, there would not be a significant impact on short-term housing in the community.

Despite this, it is helpful to use Lucerne Valley’s housing data to predict how similar communities may be affected by a large influx of temporary workers. If hundreds of workers were to move to a community like Lucerne Valley, the demand for rental housing would quickly and vastly exceed the available supply. Victorville, Apple Valley, and Hesperia, which together have thousands of rental units, would likely accommodate the excess demand. With median rent asked around $450 to $500 in the three neighboring communities, Lucerne Valley’s rental stock (median rent asked $377) would remain economically competitive. This situation sharply contrasts with the situation in Boulder City, where comparatively high rents helped to push rental-housing demand into the surrounding metro Las Vegas area.

El Centro
Based on the city’s large population and relatively small percentage of retirees, El Centro has a sizable workforce. El Centro’s education data also suggests that residents might benefit from the creation of unskilled labor positions. However, it is unlikely the city’s workforce will benefit from Imperial Valley Solar since the city’s labor pool must compete with workers in nearby Imperial, Calexico, and Brawley. Considering that Imperial Valley Solar is projected to create 731 jobs during peak construction and 164 operation positions, and that the populations of the four urban centers sum to over 120,000 people, the number of new jobs is largely insignificant.⁵

Similar to Lucerne Valley, El Centro’s rental housing market will be largely unaffected by the new solar facility. The number of construction workers needed for Imperial Valley Solar is largely insignificant in comparison to the considerable population of the area. However, if all 731 workers added to the demand for temporary housing, El Centro’s nearly 7,000 rental units may not be enough to accommodate the increase. In that situation, temporary workers may also choose to rent less expensive units in one of the three nearby cities, where median rent asked ranges from $186 to $406 per month.

1 Ecology and Environment, Inc., “The Draft Environmental Impact Statement and California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment for the Proposed Chevron Energy Solutions Lucerne Valley Solar Project: Volume 1,” The California Energy Commission, http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ca/pdf/cdd.Par.66057.File.dat....

2 State of California, “E-4 Population Estimates for Cities, Counties and the State, 2001-2009, with 2000 Benchmark,” California Department of Finance, www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-4_2001-07/.

3 United States Census Bureau, United States Census 2000, http://factfinder.census.gov.

4 Ecology and Environment, Inc., “The Draft Environmental Impact Statement and California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment for the Proposed Chevron Energy Solutions Lucerne Valley Solar Project: Volume 1,” The California Energy Commission, http://www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ca/pdf/cdd.Par.66057.File.dat.... 4.18-4

5 US Bureau of Land Management and the California Energy Commission, “Staff Assessment and Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Draft California Desert Conservation Area Plan Amendment SES Solar Two Project: Application for Certification (08-AFC-5) Imperial County,” The California Energy Commission, www.energy.ca.gov/2010publications/CEC-700-2010-002/CEC- 700-2010-002-SA-DEIS.PDF: C.10-4.