America’s largest solar PV plant completed in Nevada

[jpak]

http://www.brighterenergy.org/20236/news/solar/americas-largest-solar-photovoltaic-plant-completed-in-nevada/

Arizona firm First Solar has completed America’s largest solar photovoltaic plant, a 48-megawatt facility in Boulder City, Nevada.

The company supplied solar panels as well as engineering, procurement and construction services for the Copper Mountain Solar facility on behalf of energy company Sempra Generation, a sister company of the California utility San Diego Gas & Electric.

The facility located on a 380-acre site 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas can generate enough renewable energy to supply 14,000 homes with electricity.

Construction began in January, with about 350 workers installing about 775,000 photovoltaic panels.

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[Ghost Dog]

1. So on a bit less than two-thirds of a square mile, 48MW is produced.

This sounds like what my island here needs. Odd, though, that nobody seems to want to say how much it cost to build.

[Yo_Mama]

2. I'm Curious Too

It's supposed to be a very good site.

The co won't disclose anything about costs, and PG&E won't disclose their payments. It really appears like a swap agreement based on their resolution:
http://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_RESOLUTION/111507.htm

They do say they are allowed to get the entire cost back through rate increases, and the 775,000 panels are, according to the resolution, fixed-tilt thin-film PV panels manufactured by First Solar. That would help figuring the costs.

That stuff about pseudo-ties:
Under this scenario, referred to by the CAISO as a "dynamic transfer" or "pseudo-tie" agreement, Copper Mountain avoids having to schedule deliveries with Nevada Energy and/or the need to construct transmission to deliver energy into the CAISO control area.12 On November 30, the CAISO filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission a pseudo-tie agreement between the CAISO and El Dorado Energy.

I found more info on pseudo-ties here:
http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20100615007142/en

I gather that it means that the new power plant will dump its output into the local grid, and the local grid will shift power to the CA local grid. Thus the actual delivered power may or may not be solar-generated.

I also found an earlier study in which they figured an average grid feed-in charge of $-30MW for the wind/solar for the outside sources due to high subsidies.
http://www.caiso.com/284c/284ca45940f50.pdf

[OnlinePoker]

3. Solar is a fart in a windstorm even compared to other renewables

To the end of August of this year, it had produced only 755 Thousand MWH for the year. Compare that to wind which has generated 58 Million MWH in the same period.

Go to 1.1.A Other Renewables: Total - All Sectors for the data. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html

Currently, there are only another 606 MW capacity of plants under construction (double the current capacity of 603 MW) with another 23,600 "under development". Many of these will never be constructed due to finances, lack of subsidies, or even environmental concerns. Solar, for the near to mid-term is unlikely to provide a significant portion of electricity for the U.S.

http://www.seia.org/galleries/pdf/Major%20Solar%20Projects.pdf

[joshcryer]

4. And unfortunately wind hinges greatly on solar for a pure renewable grid.

[Kolesar]

5. Because our politicans screwed us with big, centralized generation

There's your fart.

[Nihil]

6. To be fair ...

> Because our politicans screwed us with big, centralized generation

... the "big, centralized generation" came into place a LONG time before
there was any chance of significant wind (never mind solar) power.

Whilst I agree that recent politicians have done nothing very little to
address this, the situation is actually older than your current President ...

:shrug: