Six New Solar Power Plant Plans Pulverize Old Records
by Matthew McDermott, New York, NY on 09.11.08
Back in the beginning of the summer we heard about plans to develop what at the time would have been world’s largest thin-film solar PV plant, a 10 megawatt facility outside of Las Vegas. Around the same time a 25 megawatt solar PV plant in Florida (using regular solar panels) was announced. While technically records, both really wouldn’t provide that much power in the grand scheme of things.
Well, oh what a difference a couple of months can make. In the past month alone the scale of some of the new solar power plants being planned has increased such that you really should sit up at take notice. Granted, all of these are either in the planning stages or in the very first phases of construction—it wouldn’t surprise if some of these plans get revised—but still, solar power plants that rival fossil fuel power plants in size is a huge boost for renewable energy. So check ‘em out:
250 MW Integrated Solar Power Facility Planned for West Bengal
The smallest and most recently announced of all these projects, Bhaskar Silicon Ltd will be building an integrated solar power complex in Haldia, West Bengal near the border with Bangladesh. The first phase of the project is expected to be completed by 2009. In addition to the 250 MW of electricity the facility will generate, by the time it is fully operational in 2011 it will be able to produce 5,000 tonnes of polysilicon.
BrightSource to Build 500 Megawatts of Solar-Thermal Power in Mojave Desert
Announced back in April, BrightSource Power will be building three solar thermal plants in the Mojave Desert of California with a combined capacity of 500 MW which are expected to come online by 2011. The utility buying the power will be PG&E, which has signed contracts for an additional 400 MW of solar power which could bring the final size for this project to 900 MW.
550 Megawatts Thin Film + 250 MW Regular Solar for California
PG&E apparently wasn’t satisfied with its 500 MW arrangement with BrightSource above (hint: California’s renewable targets have a lot to do with it...) and has signed contracts with two different solar developers using two different solar technologies: Optisolar will be building a record-shattering 550 MW thin-film solar plant in San Louis Obispo County, while SunPower will be building a 250 MW solar facility called the California Solar Ranch. The former project is expected to begin feeding power to the grid beginning in 2011, the latter in 2011.
BrightSource Plans 1200 MW Facility Outside of Las Vegas
Similar to its plans for California above, BrightSource has upped the ante with its plans for Nevada. The company has announced plans to build three interconnected solar thermal plants with a combined capacity of 1200 MW at a site northeast of Las Vegas. BrightSource estimates that this project will create enough electricity to power 900,000 homes.As several regulatory hurdles still need to be cleared on this one, and BrightSource still needs to find someone to buy the plants’ power, this one still has some pretty large question marks surrounding it. That said, BrightSource hopes to have the facility completed by 2012.
World’s Largest Solar Energy Project (5GW!) Planned for Gujarat, India
Though this project is by far the largest solar project under consideration, and would be one of the largest power projects regardless of source, the 5 GW (that’s 5000 MW for the watt-conversion challenged) “Integrated Solar City” which was recently discussed by the Clinton Foundation and to be located in the western Indian state of Gujarat is such an increase in scale for solar power that, frankly, my jaw hangs open in a mixture of joy, disbelief and awe.Even though it has not be disclosed whether the project will employ solar photovoltaic or solar thermal technology, it certainly is gigantic. Even if it eventually gets built at half its currently touted size, it’ll still be bigger than your average nuclear plant by a wide margin.
General Motors Factory to Host World’s Largest Rooftop Solar Array
Though not even in the same league as the other projects mentioned here, the rooftop solar array which General Motors is installing on its Zaragosa, Spain assembly plant deserves an honorable mention award. At 12 MW it really shows what you can do when you’ve got the willpower, two million square feet of rooftop real estate and 85,000 solar panels. General Motors has not indicated how much of the plant's power requirements will be met through this project, but at similar facilities in California up to 50% of their electric demand.Solar Power
250 MW Integrated Solar Power Facility Planned for West Bengal
BrightSource to Build 500 Megawatts of Solar-Thermal Power in Mojave Desert
550 Megawatts: A Thin-Film Solar Record Worth Announcing!
a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/08/brightsource-energy-plans-1200-megawatt-solar-themal-plant-nevada.php">BrightSource Plans 1200 MW Facility Outside of Las Vegas
World’s Largest Solar Energy Project (5GW!) Planned for Gujarat, India
General Motors Factory to Host World’s Largest Rooftop Solar Array
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Solar is taking off! Time to invest.
The time to invest was last year. Most solar stocks are overpriced ATM.
@Solar is taking off! Time to invest.
The time to invest was a couple of years ago. Most solar companies are extremely overvalued right now and it would take years for them to actually catch up with their current market valuation.
I wonder if there's any way to make the Las Vegas facility just a little bit bigger. Just 10 MW more.
Which would produce...
... wait for it...
ONE POINT TWENTY-ONE GIGAWATTS!
What we need to see is public marketing of solar panels with a reasonable cost per watt so homeowners could begin installation of these on their own homes.
At less than $5 per watt, the homeowner becomes motivated to buy and install home power generation. This price is achievable and is higher than the commercial price, but is not offered to smaller investors or end users.
What we need in the US is for residential applications to get fairly compensated- when they say "market rate" for power you generate, it isn't the rate you pay for electric, it is the wholesale rate. That is a big disadvantage, even though residential applications of solar are providing energy near the end users at peak demand, without the huge transmission losses that happen when utilities are located far away- whether coal-fired or solar. The Mojave desert projects are great, but extensive rooftop installations where people live and work would be better.
Like Green Kayak said, microgeneration is the future because it allows for personal initiative, it cuts distribution problems and relieves the grid, it can be cheaper for the government to support and is takes advantege of the potential for renewables for being decentralized.
We got to get over the idea that there are "power centrals" and start supporting individual investments aggressively.
Solar panels are great and gaining efficiency, but what about the power grid itself? We lose 66% of all the electrical energy due to high resistance in the wires, and only the remaining 33-34% reaches consumers. This is another hurdle that alternative energy will face in the near future.
Invest in solar at home!
Everybody install ONE panel,
connected to ONE automobile battery.
and lighting all of your 12volt walkway lamps or other night lights.
We will individually educate ourselves on solar technology and also fuel the solar industry while taking a few watts off the power grid.
What an amazing read. And if only some of these projects happens then it in any means that solar is finally getting somewhere in the future. Now we just need to keep on working for the promotion of wind power to get equally much attention.
it only takes 100 miles of desert with solar panels to power teh whole world!!!
who want's to be my partner???
This is all great, but the US senate will be voting on extending the ITC (Investment Tax Credit) for solar sometime this week. The Republicans have voted this bill down 8 times already this year. They will fight distributed power generation to the end, because they see it as the beginning of the end. Call your senator and make sure this bill passes
This bill could create 500,000 new jobs in America.
When referring to solar thermal, it is not heat energy that is being captured in itself, which needs to be clarified. I think it is connected with stirling engine technology, which takes the thermal output and converts it to electricity.
Not to get caught up in semantics, but it is important to make that distinction. Solar thermal is using heat energy for domestic water, district heating, etc...
BTW, at an average 15 Terawatts (15000 GW) of instantaneous human electrical power demand worldwide, we are going to need an equivalent of 3000 of those 5 GW plants! we still have a ways to go, but these are tremendous achievements nonetheless.
Is 5GW how much it does daily, monthly or yearly?
I agree that our grid needs to be upgraded drastically too to make it viable.
Do those crazy circular ones reflect and concentrate heat to turn water to steam which turns a turbine? Is that what solar thermal is?
> Solar panels are great and gaining efficiency, but what about the power grid itself? We lose 66% of all the electrical energy due to high resistance in the wires, and only the remaining 33-34% reaches consumers.
This is one of the benefits of the distributed grid mentioned just above you. If you generate the power locally (like on your roof) then there is no need to send it hundreds of miles away and lose 2/3 of it. Solar panels on our roof would could add a lot of local power and take some of the load off the grid's transmission lines.
I wanted to get in to the field of green energy more so in the Solar side .Does anyone know any good jobs or classes offered in New York area
there are some huge solar thermal stations planned to be built in Spain as well. Up to 60 in all