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Baltimore Solar Energy Company to Design and Build World's Largest Solar Power System

Posted on: Monday, 13 February 2006, 21:00 CST

By Joe Bacchus

A Baltimore solar energy company will design, build and run what would be the world's largest solar power system.Jigar Shah, managing partner at SunEdison LLC, said the Nevada system will be powerful enough to provide electricity to approximately 36,000 homes, and would account for 15 percent of the total U.S. solar power market if it was running today. Nobody has ever done anything this big before, he said.Shah said he could not yet disclose the size of the deal or the client, but that it was a military contract. The project site is Clark County, which includes Nellis Air Force Base. The Las Vegas Review Journal and the Associated Press have both previously reported a building cost of approximately $115 million.The project, which will comprise approximately 100,000 photovoltaic solar panels, is set to begin in the third fiscal quarter of 2006 and should be complete some time in early 2008, Shah said.Powered By Renewables LLC, a Nevada-based alternative energy company, will provide much of the local support for the project, Shah said

. For instance, that company will be responsible for working with the utility commission and negotiating with contractors.SunEdison was founded in 2003 with a handful of people, Shah said. While the company now employs about 70, only six are at the Baltimore headquarters. The rest - the boots on the ground, installation folks - are in Southern California because that region is where most of the work is, he said.Despite the fact that the BP Solar plant in Frederick is one of the largest in the world, Maryland offers little in the way of major solar energy projects, Shah said. This needs to change if the United States truly wishes to wean itself off of its addiction to oil, as President Bush put it in his recent State of the Union address. Also, changing now will save money down the line, Shah said.Frederick G. Davis, director of the Maryland Energy Administration, said Maryland recognizes this and is working to change. Two bills in Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.'s 2007 budget would, among other things, set aside $5 million in tax credits for efficient home-heating systems and provide $2.5 million for solar water-heating systems.In addition, Ehrlich has committed the state by executive order to purchasing at least 10 percent of its power from renewable resources such as solar, wind and water power. Davis said he was unsure how much the state government spent on power each year, but that it was the largest purchaser of power in Maryland.

Source: The Daily Record (Baltimore)

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