Utilities arrange green power buys from western US solar plants
Platts - Renewable Energy Report : June 29 2009
US utilities are moving beyond power purchase agreements with wind farms plant developers as large-scale solar projects in the states of Nevada and Texas have signed contracts this month to sell their output to retail electricity suppliers. For instance, Las Vegas, Nevada-based NV Energy said it had entered into a long-term PPA to buy power produced from a 20-MW PV power plant that will be constructed near Searchlight, Nevada, 55 miles south of Las Vegas. Massachusetts developer American Capital Energy will build the facility. Terms of the agreement, which is subject to approval by the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada, were not disclosed. The Searchlight 1 project, expected to be completed by mid-2010, will be larger than the 14-MW photovoltaic facility completed in 2007 at Nellis Air Force Base, which is currently the largest PV facility operating in the United States, NV Energy said. The agreement will assist NV Energy in meeting Nevada’s portfolio standard. The state legislature recently increased the RPS, which now requires that retail electric utilities secure 25% of their energy from renewable resources and energy efficiency and conservation by 2025. The partners said all of the PV output from the plants will go to customers in NV Energy’s southern service territory. Construction of the project is expected to create more than 120 jobs and “will further develop Nevada’s burgeoning renewable energy workforce,” the utility said.
In Texas, Tessera Solar North America reported June 23 that it had signed a 20-year PPA with San Antonio utility CPS Energy to develop a 27-MW solar project in the western part of the state. The plant will use the SunCatcher power system manufactured by Tessera Solar’s sister company, Stirling Energy Systems. Suncatcher “uses precision mirrors attached to a parabolic dish to concentrate the sun’s energy onto a high-efficiency Stirling Engine,” Tessera Solar said. “Each dish can generate up to 25,000 watts of power and has been certified by [the US Department of Energy’s] Sandia National Laboratories as having the highest sun-to-grid energy conversion in the world.” The contract is the first PPA to be signed by Tessera Solar since Ireland-based parent company NTR invested $100 million in Tessera Solar and SES in March 2008. The project will provide enough energy to power 4,000 San Antonio homes.
“This marks our first purchase of solar-generated energy, and we look for it to be the start of a successful solar program for many years to come. Solar will complement our diversified approach to producing electricity,” said CPS Energy CEO Milton B. Lee. Tessera Solar also has 1.5 GW of solar energy projects in California’s Imperial Valley and Mojave Desert.