NV Set to Upstage Neighbor with Largest New Solar Plant
California has created most of the solar buzz with its 10-year statewide initiative for on-site solar photovoltaic (PV) installations and two high-profile proposed baseload concentrating solar power (CSP) projects in the desert regions east of Los Angeles and San Diego in Southern California. However, it is Nevada, with its equally plentiful sunshine in the south, that will boast the nation's largest new CSP solar facility when it begins commercial operations this summer. Sierra Pacific Resources' Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co. have a long-term contract for all 64 MW and the renewable credits from the parabolic trough system being built in El Dorado Valley east of Las Vegas by Solargenix and Spain's Acciona Energy, SA. They classify the project as the third largest in the nation, and the largest solar installation put together in the last 15 years.
The installation should be hooked to the grid and partially operating in May, according to officials with the equipment maker, New York-based Schott North America. An education center and other peripheral parts of the installation will be finished between May and the official commercial launch.
"The parabolic trough work is about 99.5% complete," said a Schott official in a brief interview with Power Market Today on Tuesday. "Most of the remaining work is centered on the power block, with its turbines and generator."
Called "Nevada Solar One," this project has been around for five years, originally as part of a supply contract between the Sierra Pacific utilities and a predecessor company to Solargenix. Originally, the two Nevada utilities were counting on supplies from the project -- then slated at the 50 MW level -- in 2005 or 2006.
Construction began a year ago, and initial commercial operations were set to begin by the end of this month. As a CSP system, the facility will consist of a series of concave-shaped troughs that collect the sun's heat and transfer 750 degrees to a steam turbine that will generate the 64 MW.
The technology is considered well tested since the nation's two largest solar installations begun 20 years ago in the Mojave Desert 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles have a collective capacity of 354 MW and have been operated (in recent years by merchant owner/operators) continuously by different owners.
"Parabolic trough power plants can be integrated with conventional fossil fuel power plants for back-up purposes, such as the two California installations or for supplemental purposes in integrated solar combined-cycle power plants," said a Schott spokesperson.