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Yet Another Spanish Firm to Harvest Solar in Southwestern U.S.
New projects to harness thermal power from America's sun-soaked deserts keep rolling in – thanks in part to Spain.
The latest was announced this week, when Madrid-based Albiasa Solar disclosed plans for a 200 MW, $1 billion concentrating solar plant (CSP) that will spread a sea of parabolic mirrors over a 1,400-acre stretch of Arizona desert near Kingman.
When completed in 2013, the billion-dollar plant will power 50,000 homes.
It's the first solar deal on U.S. soil for Albiasa – and the latest move by a Spanish firm to cash in on the country's concentrated sunlight.
In 2007, Spain's Acciona Solar dedicated America's first CSP plant in almost two decades, Nevada Solar One (pictured above). The $266 million plant boasts a capacity of 64 MW.
In 2008, Abengoa Solar, a Spanish multinational, announced plans to construct what will be one of the largest CSP plants on the planet when it goes online in 2011 – a $1 billion, 280 MW facility 70 miles southwest of Phoenix.
Abengoa was also awarded two R&D contracts last year from the U.S. Department of Energy for a total of $14.4 million. The money will support the company's efforts to help make CSP as cheap as coal by 2015.
We'll see if that can happen. And if it does, then CSP, the sleeping solar giant of the desert, could theoretically meet a vast portion of future energy demand, particularly in the Southwestern U.S. By one estimate, a single, massive plant in Nevada, about 100 miles on each side, could power all of America.
No wonder CSP is seen as the best chance of expanding U.S. renewable energy – and why Spain’s enterprising solar sector, and others, want a piece of the action.
The technology is relatively simple. Giant mirrors focus desert sunlight into tubes of fluid that are heated and sent to a generating station, where it is then used to power a steam turbine.
It's not new, as CSP company Ausra explains in pictures here. But CSP has been improved in recent years.
And Spanish firms undoubtedly played an ample role – thanks to an attractive "feed-in tariff" the government put in place exclusively for CSP development in 2002. It's the only one of its kind in the world. And it spawned an explosion of CSP installations in Spain.
The advanced technology spread across the global economy; Spain's major renewable players opened U.S. offices. And today the American Southwest is perhaps the hottest CSP market in the world.
Why?
The extension of renewable tax credits, state renewable energy standards, and most recently the Obama presidency (among other factors), have brought long-term policy stability to the U.S. solar space for the first time ever.
Arizona is on track to be a global solar thermal leader, as this week's news demonstrates. And so is California. Take a look at some of the massive growth under way in that state:
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© InsideClimate News |
I agree about the wildlife
I agree about the wildlife but I think that in some cases sacrifices must be made, it will destroy many cactus's and such but we as a human race are running out of fuels for energy and will be eventually only be able to go solar and wind.
catcus destroyed
i had the luck to work on nevada solar one. the mirrors rotate 2 foot off ground at lowest point .ground hugging catci were growing before i left and there are acres worth of ground along fence lines and along insulated pipelines that could be planted in catci with very small effort 100 times as many catci as are there naturally can be supported on a solar field
Looks like the Spanish are
Looks like the Spanish are really branching out. They have already overtaken Japan to claim number 2 spot in their domestic market, only behind Germany.
America Re-Invents Itself One More Time!
America has finally moved on from the Fission-Fry craze to the Solar, perpetual, or renewable, if you like, powers. Solar, Wind, Wave, Hydro, Tidal and Geothermal are only a few of a much longer list of renewable, or perpetual if you will, power sources - just ask yourself, "When was the last fuel shipment to the Hoover Dam?" and you will begin to get the true potential of Solar and Wind, never mind, Tidal and Geothermal, and half a dozen other variations on the same theme! Remember: if you are crazy enough to start a Fission Fire, you put yourself one human error from and incurable Armageddon - fact. SEE: http://video.google.com/videoplay ?docid=-5384001427276447319
And judge for yourself. Keep in mind, that decommissioning old reactor sites is a human impossibility, and the land used is gone , as far as mankind is concerned, forever! When the good folks of Chernobyl return home to farm their land, it will be time for more nuclear installations in my beautiful, clean North America, and not a goddamn day sooner! Please feel free to copy and forward this message to the world.
wildlife
what is this going to do to the animals that live there? wont it destroy there enviroment?
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