Spurred by state mandates for utilities to product 20% of generated power from renewable sources, California-based
Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) entered into a landmark renewable energy agreement with Solel-MSP-1 (subsidiary of Israel-based
Solel Thermal Systems) to purchase renewable energy from the
Mojave Solar Park, to be constructed in
California’s
Mojave Desert. The project will deliver 553 megawatts of solar power, the equivalent of powering 400,000 homes, to PG&E’s customers in northern and central
California. The
Mojave Solar Park project is now the world’s largest single solar commitment.
The plant utilizes Solel’s patented and commercially-proven solar thermal parabolic trough technology to concentrate solar energy onto solar thermal receivers that contain a fluid that is heated and circulated used to generate steam that powers a turbine to produce electricity. When fully operational in 2011, the Mojave Solar Park plant will cover up to 6,000 acres, or nine square miles in the Mojave Desert. Solel is working closely with URS Corporation in the development of the Mojave Solar Park, which when commercial will rely on 1.2 million mirrors and 317 miles of vacuum tubing to capture the desert sun’s heat.
Perhaps the most environmentally satisfying aspect of the project is that the electricity generated by Mojave Solar Park will use some of the transmission infrastructure originally built for the now dormant coal-fired Mojave Generation Station to deliver the power to PG&E’s customers.
This
Red Herring article considers the PG&E-Solel agreement as a signal of the of a CSP (concentrate solar power) boom, as PG&E seeks to make other utility-scale solar farm deals with the likes of
BrightSource Energy,
Green Volts and
Cleantech America (here's an interesting
expose on Cleantech America and the ambitions of this 2-year-old startup to capitalize on the solar farm boom).
Elsewhere, PG&E is also making aggressive moves in
wind and
wave energy, reports the
Green Wombat.
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