Pacific Gas & Electric Plans Major Purchase of Fast-Developing Solar Power
Posted on: Thursday, 26 July 2007, 06:20 CDT
By Paul Davidson
Pacific Gas & Electric said Wednesday that it will buy 553 megawatts of solar power to be produced by sprawling arrays of mirrors in the Mojave Desert.
The project would be one of the largest solar thermal plants in the world, a breakthrough for the fast-developing technology.
The Northern California utility will buy the power from Israel-based Solel Solar Systems, which plans to install 1.2 million mirrors on 9 square miles in the desert in southeast California. The $2 billion project, which will power the equivalent of 400,000 homes, is to be completed by 2011.
The deal, whose terms were not disclosed, will help PG&E meet a state quota for investor-owned utilities to draw 20% of electricity from renewable sources by 2010. PG&E derives 12% of its power from renewables and has another 4% of clean energy under contract. The Solel deal provides another 2%.
The system will supply electricity during 85% of daylight hours, when energy use is highest, says Solel President Avi Brenmiller. "It correlates well with our peak demand," says PG&E's Keely Wachs.
Solar thermal energy, also called concentrating solar power, took hold in the 1980s but fell out of favor when natural-gas prices fell in the early 1990s. It's on a comeback with natural-gas prices rising.
The technology is different from the photovoltaic panels that thousands of U.S. residents are installing on their roofs. Those panels convert sunlight directly to electricity by knocking loose electrons.
Solel's solar thermal system uses parabolic 3-foot-by-4-foot mirrors to beam the sun's rays onto a thin oil-filled tube. The sun heats the oil to 750 degrees, producing steam that powers a turbine.
Electricity generated by panels costs more than 30 cents a kilowatt hour; the Solel system's power costs about 10 cents, in line with traditional power plants. Solar panels, though, can work when it's cloudy; Solel needs direct sun.
Other solar thermal projects are being tested. Other California utilities plan to buy power from a Stirling Energy Systems array of mirrors that heat hydrogen gas, which expands and drives a piston. The Solel system is the only technology that's been commercially deployed, although a smaller system has been in the Mojave since the 1980s, says Stow Walker of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. (c) Copyright 2005 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Source: USA TODAY
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