80 MW Solar Farm for California

Photovoltaic Solar Farm for Fresno Area would be the Largest in the World

FRESNO - Kings River Conservation District (KRCD) and San Francisco, CA-based Cleantech America, LLC, today announced that they have entered into a multi-year agreement for Cleantech America to provide up to 80 megawatts of utility scale, emission-free, peak solar power to the recently formed San Joaquin Valley Power Authority (SJVPA). Upon full build-out, KRCD's Community Choice Solar Farm would be the nation's largest utility scale photovoltaic facility by far.

The memorandum of understanding calls for the facility to be developed in phases of 10 megawatts in 2009, 30 megawatts in 2010 and 40 megawatts in 2011, for a total of 80 MW. Currently the largest announced facility in the U.S. is a 15 MW solar plant at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada. . . . More

Comments

[Rod Ruoff]

This is great to hear. But: I had thought Nevada's Solar One was 64 MW capacity? So, why is the 15 MW "announced" facility listed ahead of it? 80 is certainly bigger than 64, by 20%...so not sure that qualifies for "by far" either.

But to reiterate: This is great news and the USA should be mobilizing on a massive scale with wind and solar (thermal, PV, etc.)

--Rod

[John F.]

"...largest utility scale photovoltaic facility..."

Solar One was thermal, not photovoltaic. There are several solar thermal projects that are much larger than any PV project, some as much as 10 times as large.

[Bernard Molloy]

"Cleantech America LLC's 2nd Utility Scale Photovoltaic Solar Farm for Fresno Area would be the Largest in the World"
The announced 154 MW solar concentrator by solar Systems in Victoria, Australia would be nearly double the size of the Fresno facility by 2013 using Boeing Spectrolab cells.
In one of the companies other releases they also state that PV
" differentiated from solar thermal, which emits greenhouse gases and other pollutants."

What emissions?
It hardly seems worthwhile to be sniping about PV versus Solar Thermal in the broader context of Global Warming.

[JohnBo]

For large utility scale power plants photovoltaic is way behind other green technologies. PV is more appropriate for distributed generation. A new generation nuclear plant would provide green power at much reduced cost. It seems the folks in California always get the highest cost for everything. But heck, if it makes them “feel” good then go for it. People have done a lot more foolish things. Ha-ha.

[Dr. Hussain Alrobaei]

Currently Photovoltaics is the right technology for decentralized utilization of solar energy, while the strength of Solar Thermal Power Plant (STPP) technology is centralized power generation. STPP technology is particularly efficient at higher solar radiation intensity. Therefore it offers very good options for development not only for the southwestern region of US, but also in many economically disadvantage region in the earth’s Sunbelt. Furthermore, Parabolic trough technology has know entered a phase of constant optimization .the operation coasts have dropped from originally 0.08 $/kW.hr to 0.03 $/kW.hr. By 2015 the power production cost will be comparable to those of medium load power plants using fossil fuels. STPP technology can provide the necessary amount of clean energy to achieve the targets for optimizing the consumption of fossil fuel in electrical power grid, minimizing the environmental impact, and climate stabilization. The waste heat of STPP can be used for seawater desalination as well as for electricity generation [1].

[1] 1. Hussain Alrobaei , 2007 , Repowering and Modification of Grid Connected Reverse Osmosis Desalination Plants/ http://www.environmental-expert.com

[Chandranshu Pandya]

While solar PV may not be economically viable at the moment, in times to come ( and with rapidly increasing cost of fossil fuel power costs ), solar PV may also become economically viable.Recent changes and new technology developments in PV technologies in downward trend in PV costs may make the project workable , especially in the final phases of the project.
In any case the initiative 0f"clean air" is welcome.

[Calamity]

Perhaps concentrating photovoltaics may prove to be more suitable for such large plants. With the latest non-imaging optics, diffuse light can also be harvested very well, making it more suitable in areas with less direct solar irradiance; a distinct advantage over solar-thermal plants. And with novel cooling methods, overheating is less of an issue, especially when lower concentration devices like slat arrays are used.

[jeannick]

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PhoVo plants are SOOO energy inefficient !!
we have plenty of sun in OZ and except for remote area electronic use it doesn't fly .
The victoria project is little more than a PR exercice by a brain dead local gov with no ideas of techno and plenty of use for press releases .
We had a solar race for more than ten years between Darwin and Alice spring in the middle aof a sun drenched desert for final performances inferior to a push bike !!!

PhoVo is extremely pollutant too ,it's life cycle , total transport of materials , installation maitenance make it about break even energy wise with a slave cranking a dynamo , hardly the path to the future !

The only solar usable for limited power usage is thermal solar , coupled with some sort of storage , transport system ,

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[Allied Nation]

Jeannick, you don't have to like photovoltaics, but unless you can average 103 km per hour from Darwin to Adelaide (not Alice Springs) on a pushbike you can't say the performance is inferior to a bicycle, because that's what the winner managed in 2005. In fact, they were slowed down by South Australia's 110 km an hour speed limit. Are your legs that good?

Also, a human working hard can put out about 100 watts so a slave cranking a 90% efficient dynamo would be lucky to produce a kilowatt-hour a day. If you feed your slave on 99 cent a loaf bread, then your power is going to cost two dollars or more a kilowatt-hour, much more expensive than solar.

So you are either ignorant or lying. Which one is it?

[Marla]

Come see the truth. 40+/- yr major cover up.
www.myspace.com or http://blog.myspace.com/marlalk

[Turkey Property]

Thanks for guiding me through this. Rarely do I find good entries that would walk me through.
Great post.
http://www.turkish-property-world.com/ Turkey Property