Just last July, Southern California Edison, California’s biggest utility, announced what was then the largest planned array of solar panels in the world, but today it outdid itself by announcing what it bills as “the world’s largest solar deal.”
The utility has an agreement with BrightSource Energy to buy electricity from a planned suite of solar-thermal power plants — arrays of mirrors that heat fluid to drive turbines — with a total capacity of 1,300 megawatts.
The first 100-megawatt mirror array is to be built in the Mojave Desert in southern California, according to the utility and BrightSource, with construction starting later this year and power flowing in 2013 if regulators approve the project. (By comparison, the average coal-burning power plant has a capacity of about 800 megawatts, but generates electricity day or night.)
The costs of the electricity, the plants and the estimated markup on utility bills were not disclosed.
The credit crisis and recession have hit the solar and wind industries hard elsewhere, but the rapid expansion of solar power capacity (and wind turbines, too) in California is the result of a mandate. Utilities are racing to meet the state’s “renewable portfolio standard” requirement that power providers have 20 percent of electricity flowing from renewable sources by next year.
Vanessa McGrady, a spokeswoman for Southern California Edison, said the utility currently has 16 percent of its electricity coming from renewable sources.
And so the utility remains in a race to find more capacity, and soon. Its Web site has an ongoing list of renewable-energy projects.
There’s a debate out there about the merits of mandates in driving expansion of non-polluting energy options. Advocates for such standards say that the expanded market will drive down the production costs of panels, turbines and other clean power sources. Some say that pursuing efficiency is far cheaper. Others say that any state or federal requirements for non-polluting power should include nuclear reactors, which also produce no greenhouse gases when generating electricity. What do you think?
Source - New york times
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2 comments:
The point that you make in your last paragraph, concerning the idea that lower production costs via scalability vs building nuclear reactors, is to me at least a faux debate. We actually need to do both, as well a myriad of other new technologies and unexplored ideas.
Now is the time for action. later we can sort out what works best. Keep innovating.
Afternoon Negotiator,
Sorry for the late response..I can see your point in regards to debate of scalability and nuclear reactors.
I do agree with you on that am still trying to understanding some of the technologies to keep up with the changes as we speak.
Thanks for reading our blogs much appericated.
Cheers
Echarger
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