More Solar Power Plans For California  

The New York Times has an article on 2 more Californian solar PV power plants - Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California.

Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale.

The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store.

The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010. The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil water.

“These market-leading projects we have in California are something that can be extrapolated around the world,” Jennifer Zerwer, a spokeswoman for the utility, said. “It’s a milestone.” ...

OptiSolar, a company that has just begun making a type of solar panel with a thin film of active material, will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County. The SunPower Corporation, which uses silicon-crystal technology, will build about 250 megawatts at a different location in the same county.

Matthew Wald has just written a news article showing the power of a guaranteed market to bring about large-scale construction of energy technologies that currently cannot compete with the status quo. Two photovoltaic power plants, in essence, are going to be built in California, covering a total of 12.5 square miles and amounting to 800 megawatts of generating capacity (although remember that the peak is only hit for a small portion of the day).

Photovoltaics eventually would need to be as cheap as paint or roof shingles to begin to make a serious dent in coal burning, many experts say. Other ways to harvest sunlight, including solar thermal plants, are already close to competitive but restricted to areas with clear skies most of the year. But it is hard not to be impressed by the announcement today, if only because of the scale of the plans.