Reuters reports the giant Blythe solar power project in California is switching from solar thermal to solar PV for the first 500 MW stage of development - World's biggest solar power plant shifts technology.

he company behind what is expected to one day be the world's largest solar power plant on Thursday said the California project will use photovoltaic technology instead of solar thermal power because of the dramatic drop in the price of solar panels.

Germany's Solar Millennium AG said it will convert the first 500 megawatts of its 1,000 MW Blythe solar power plant in the Mojave desert to PV. It will decide what technology to use for the second half of the project at a later date. The company did not name a PV panel supplier for the project. …

The move is the latest in a string of such conversions this year by solar thermal power plant developers in California. So far this year, at least four projects, representing about 1,850 MW of generation, have elected to change most or all of their technology to PV, which turns sunlight into electricity, from concentrating solar power, or CSP, which uses heat to create steam that powers a generator.

The price of PV panels has plummeted in the five years since California mandated that the state's utilities source 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, sparking a building spree of solar and wind projects. Since 2008, the price of PV solar modules has fallen by more than half, including about a 25 percent drop this year alone.

The switch will also enable the project to get up and running in smaller phases than the 250 MW chunks required by the CSP technology, the company said in a separate statement released by its U.S. unit, Solar Trust of America.

Because it is switching to a more ubiquitous technology, the company plans to finance the project in the commercial bank market rather than with a loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. ...

Solar Millennium said it still sees strong demand for concentrating solar power, also known as solar thermal power, in markets such as Africa, the Middle East, India, China and Southern Europe.

Venture Beat reports that the 1 GW solar thermal power plant proposed for Blythe in California has received a large loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy - Solar Trust of America nabs $2.1B loan for solar thermal plant.

The U.S. Department of Energy has awarded a $2.1 billion loan guarantee to Solar Trust of America for a solar thermal power plant near Blythe, Calif.

The Oakland, Calif.-based company secured the loan for the first phase of a project that will generate 1,000 megawatts of power. Solar thermal power plants use an array of mirrors that focus sunlight onto a single point on a tower. The heat from the focused sunlight heats up water, creating steam that moves conventional turbines to generate electricity.

The loan guarantee means the government will cover the debt Solar Power Trust of America will accrue to finance the project if it cannot pay it back to other borrowers.

Solar power towers recently made news when Google dropped $168 million in a solar power tower project in the Mojave Desert in California. Power towers aren’t entirely new — there were two solar power towers deployed in California already to show that the technology worked. The two towers generated 38,000 megawatt hours of electricity while they were active between 1982 and 1988.

The new project should push California toward its new goal of generating around a third of the state’s power from renewable energy sources — a law that Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown signed last week. The new law is a major incentive for clean technology companies in the state to begin ramping up their production of clean energy sources. Previous laws required power companies to fill 20 percent of their output with renewable energy sources by 2010 with a 3-year grace period.

The New York Times has a report on the largest of the solar thermal power plants proposed for California - 1,000-Megawatt Plant in Calif. Marks New Milestone in Solar Expansion.

Federal regulators are nearing final approval of what would be the largest solar power plant in the world, a milestone that sets a new standard for the industry and marks a major advancement in the Obama administration's efforts to expand renewable energy production nationwide.

The Bureau of Land Management has issued a final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the Blythe Solar Power Project in southeast California. When fully operational, the solar thermal power plant would have the capacity to produce 1,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power roughly 800,000 homes.

The final EIS, which is considered the last federal regulatory hurdle before a record of decision authorizing construction, is open for public comment through Sept. 18. The California Energy Commission, which must also render a decision on the Blythe plant, formally recommended this month that the project be approved.

"We're already beginning work on the record of decision, on compliance monitoring plans, on getting all the paperwork together for the rentals and reclamation, and our hope is to package it all together for one big signing" as early as October, said Holly Roberts, associate field manager for BLM's Palm Springs-South Coast Field Office in Palm Springs, Calif.

Solar Millennium LLC, the Oakland, Calif.-based project developer, said it will take at least six years to complete all four phases of the $6 billion project, which will be located on 7,025 acres of BLM land in Riverside County, about eight miles west of the city of Blythe.

When completed, the Blythe plant would nearly double the current 585 megawatts of installed commercial-scale solar generation nationwide and would have a capacity to generate nearly three times the electricity produced at the country's largest solar facility -- the nine-unit, 354-megawatt Solar Energy Generating Systems plant in Kramer Junction, Calif., according to statistics provided by the Solar Energy Industries Association.