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DOE finalizes a $967M loan guarantee to support the Agua Caliente Solar Project
5 August 2011
The US Department of Energy (DOE) finalized a $967-million loan guarantee to Agua Caliente Solar, LLC. The loan guarantee will support the construction of the Agua Caliente Solar Project, a 290-megawatt photovoltaic solar generating facility in Yuma County, Arizona that will use thin film solar panels manufactured by First Solar, Inc.
The photovoltaic generation facility will be one of the largest plants of its kind in the world when completed.
The Agua Caliente Solar project will deploy fault ride-through and dynamic voltage regulation, technologies that are new to photovoltaic solar power plants in the United States. These technologies will improve the reliability and predictability of the electricity supplied to the electricity grid. Pacific Gas & Electric Company will purchase power generated from the project.
August 5, 2011 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
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Nice project but no energy storage? Is there any kind of storage for pv panel project? I know of the molten salt technology for mirror + tower solar projects.
Posted by: ejj | August 05, 2011 at 02:45 PM
I'd really like to see PV projects covering shopping malls and office parks, both the buildings and the parking lots.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | August 05, 2011 at 08:17 PM
Nearly a billion dollars and not one home gets electricity at night from this project.
These panels are built with poisonous element cadmium that is deadlier than lead or uranium, and the other major element is telurium.
The output at full sun is 290,000,000 watts and it takes 2400 acres of land, but it is more efficient than cellulostic ethanol. This area is 2400X4050 or nearly 10,000,000 square meters, and at 1000 watts per square meter input at 10% efficiency 1000,000,000 watts could be produced.
What is the real price of this project. How much did the land cost? Just the loan guarantee is $10,000 each for each of all the 100000 homes served when the sun is shining. The 10,000 dollars could buy a cogeneration system for each house that would supply power for the full day. With the grid interconnect, fossil fuel powered generators will have to supply nearly all the power used when the sun is not shining.
How much would battery storage cost for this project to make it equivalent to coal fired electricity. The cost of coal is not a large portion of the cost of electricity at the meter; only about 25 per cent. So it does not matter as much that sun light is free.
Infinia could have used this money for the installation of a large array of its more efficient generator mirrors that do not contain highly toxic cadmium or need the rare element tellurium. And they could be modified to store heat for operation after dark. ..HG..
Posted by: Henry Gibson | August 07, 2011 at 12:45 AM
Regardless of the technology used to capture free, clean sun energy, it is a good investment for USA. This type of loan guarantee does not cost much if any to the US Treasury. It is not plain subsidies (hand outs) like Oil Cos and GM are getting.
When used to supply daylight peak demands, storage is not a real requirement. However, it is a must for the rest of the day.
Posted by: HarveyD | August 07, 2011 at 09:55 AM
This is Southern Aridzona.
Daytime power is often consumed by AC units, there is no need for storage.
Storage costs money.
In winter, spring and fall, when power demand is low, send the extra down the power lines - you can't store 5 months worth of power.
The land is probably cheap.
Posted by: ToppaTom | August 08, 2011 at 08:46 PM