301 Moved Permanently

---

nginx

Environmental Group Calls Ivanpah CSP Facility ‘A Mistake’

Like a massive, mirrored flower blooming in the Mojave, the 392 MW Ivanpah concentrating solar power (CSP) facility is nearly at its fullest extent. Nevertheless, the location of the Ivanpah project does not sit well with some environmental groups, notably the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), which has gone public with its displeasure.

According to CBS Los Angeles, the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization says that while it supported the project in principle, it was critical of its placement in the environmentally sensitive Mojave Desert.

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, organized into three units, is claimed by its developers NRG Energy and BrightSource Energy to be the largest solar thermal system in the world. Nearing completion, any effort to nip the plant in the bud now might seem doomed to fail.

“More than 153,990 of the project’s total 173,500 heliostats have been installed to date,” says Jeff Holland, communications director for NRG Solar, a subsidiary of NRG Energy. “Units 1 and 2 have had successful steam blows, and the project is currently about 92 percent complete. We’re still tracking toward full operation in all three units by the end of the year.”

Yet, the timing of any static about the Ivanpah project could be troubling. In late June, K Road Power called an end to its effort to build a solar power facility in the Mojave. The Calico Solar Project had been bedeviled by lawsuits filed by a succession of environmental groups over the years. While a K Road Power spokesperson would only point to “changed market conditions” for its decision to terminate the project, those conditions by and large were products of opposition on environmental grounds.

Certainly, environmental resistance did literally take the steam out of the project. Calico was originally to be a CSP facility. K Road Power made a change to solar photovoltaic in hopes of reducing its environmental impact when it acquired the project in December 2010, ultimately to no avail.

As for Ivanpah, it appears to be full steam ahead. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management issued a decision in favor of the project in October 2010 following approval by the California Energy Commission.

“I am not aware of any outstanding legal issues, and we are proceeding as planned,” says NRG Solar’s Holland.

If Ivanpah is successful, it could be a model for other massive solar projects on public lands. In a recent speech, President Barack Obama said he has directed the Department of the Interior to issue permits for an additional 10 GW of renewable energy on public lands by 2020. This is on top of the 10 GW of permitting that has been issued since 2012.

Rather than mounting a major challenge, the NPCA seems to be using the opportunity presented by Calico’s fall and the president’s call to raise awareness about the issue of siting large solar projects on public lands. David Lamfrom, the NPCA’s California desert senior program manager, says the problem is that government and industry planners did not take full account of what the costs would be in terms of damage to places that should be protected.

“We obviously made a mistake here,” Lamfrom says of Ivanpah, adding that large-scale renewable power plants should be sited on what he terms “disturbed land” - land that has already been used for some other purpose. He says his organization has identified 1.5 million acres of disturbed land in the California desert.

“We asked them to move,” he says. “They did not.”

Tensions between advocates of renewable power and environmentalists are likely to increase as more projects on federal lands get the green light. In early June, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced the approval of the 350 MW Midland Solar Energy Project in Nevada and the 100 MW Quartzsite Solar Energy Project in Arizona, along with the 70 MW New York Canyon Geothermal Project in Nevada.

The NPCA’s Lamfrom says that his organization considers itself on notice. He believes future large-scale solar projects are likely to receive much more scrutiny from communities, environmental organizations and regulators. On the other hand, he says there are other projects in the Ivanpah Valley and elsewhere planned for pristine desert locations that have been grandfathered in under existing procedures.

“We haven’t stood in the way of this particular project,” he says of the CSP facility nearing completion. However, don’t count on any others getting a free ride: “We may just have to say no.” R

– Michael Puttré

 

Macho Springs 50 MW
PV Project Breaks Ground

First Solar Inc. says construction has commenced on the Macho Springs 50 MW solar power plant, located on state trust land in Luna County, N.M. Construction is expected to be completed by May 2014.

El Paso Electric will purchase the entire output power from the Macho Springs solar power project under a 20-year power purchase agreement to serve its New Mexico and Texas service territory. This project was secured by El Paso Electric through an all-source competitive request for proposals process conducted in 2011.

The project will operate on a commercial lease from the state land office on about 500 acres of land. First Solar also has an interconnection agreement with El Paso Electric.

 

Negev Energy To Build
110 MW CSP Facility

Spain-based energy technology company Abengoa says it has formed a partnership with Israel-based engineering and infrastructure firm Shikun & Binui called Negev Energy to build, own and operate a 110 MW concentrated solar power (CSP) plant with storage located in the Negev Desert. Abengoa says the partnership won a build-operate-transfer tender by the Israeli government.

Abengoa says electricity will be purchased by Israel Electricity Corp. over a 25-year power purchase agreement. Construction is expected to start in 2014 in the Ashalim area of the Negev once the power purchase agreement and project financing are closed.

The Ashalim CSP project will be of a solar trough design. Solar trough plants collect solar energy using mirrors that follow the sun and concentrate its energy onto heat absorber tubes that carry a fluid. Using a heat exchanger, the thermal energy heats water to generate steam that is used to produce electricity using a turbine.

 

Walgreens Expanding
Solar Installations

Walgreens and Chicago-based solar developer SoCore Energy say they will build more than 200 new solar installations at Walgreens drugstores throughout California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York. The drugstore chain says the expansion will bring the number of completed solar installations at its locations to more than 350.

Walgreens will host the solar arrays, and SoCore Energy will own, operate and maintain them. The two companies have collaborated on multi-location solar building projects in the past.

Responding to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Better Buildings Challenge, Walgreens says it has committed to a chain-wide 20% energy reduction by 2020.

 

Fiera Axium Acquires
42 MW Of Solar Plants

Fiera Axium Infrastructure Canada II L.P. has completed the acquisition of a 100% equity interest in four solar photovoltaic projects from Ontario Solar PV Fields Inc. Once constructed, the projects will sell power to the Ontario Power Authority pursuant to 20-year power purchase agreements under the terms of the Ontario government’s feed-in tariff program.

The PV projects, initially developed by Ontario Solar PV Fields, are expected to have 42 MW of aggregate generation capacity located in Ontario in the townships of Ramore, Hearst, Kapuskasing and Wainwright.

Fiera Axium says Hanwha Q CELLS Canada will build the projects. Construction is set to begin this summer and is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2014. Once completed, the solar facilities are expected to supply up to 50 GWh of electricity per year.

 

Phoenix Solar Building
38.6 MW Project In GA

Phoenix Solar Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of Phoenix Solar AG, has signed a contract with Silicon Ranch Corp. to build the 38.6 MW Simon Solar Farm in Georgia. According to the companies, the installation will become the state’s largest solar project upon completion.

Under the terms of the contract, Phoenix Solar Inc. will provide all engineering, procurement and construction services to Silicon Ranch. The ground-mounted project will feature JA Solar modules, SMA inverters and Unirac mounting systems. Phoenix Solar will also provide long-term operations and maintenance support.

Site work has already begun at Simon Solar Farm, and the project is scheduled for completion by the end of this year. Atlanta-based utility Georgia Power will buy the project’s output under a 20-year power purchase agreement with Silicon Ranch.

 

Two 20 MW PV Plants
Go Live In California

NRG Energy Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary NRG Solar, has announced that two of the solar photovoltaic facilities the company acquired from Recurrent Energy earlier this year have reached commercial operation.

Recurrent Energy developed both projects, which will be owned and operated by NRG.

The two California-based PV facilities, Kansas South and TA-High Desert, each have a peak capacity of 20 MW and deliver electricity to Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric.

 

Cupertino Finishes 30 MW Of Utility Solar

Cupertino Electric Inc. says its Energy Alternatives Division has completed two solar generation projects in Huron, Calif., for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E). The 20 MW and 10 MW solar projects are the fourth and fifth in a series of projects that Cupertino Electric has designed and built for PG&E since 2011 under the utility’s clean energy initiative.

Construction of the facilities began in late 2012 and finished in May, when they became fully operational. The two PG&E solar projects feature a total of 139,600 fixed-tilt solar modules.

 

NRG Acquires 25.65 MW
Solar Project In Guam

NRG Energy Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary NRG Solar, has acquired a 25.65 MW solar project on the island of Guam from Quantum Guam Power Holdings LLC, a wholly owned affiliate of Quantum Utility Generation LLC.

Guam, a U.S. territory subject to U.S. law and environmental regulations, currently relies on imported residual fuel oil and diesel to generate 100% of its power requirements. NRG Solar will construct, own and operate the solar project, which will sell all of its power output to the Guam Power Authority, the island’s sole electric utility, under two 25-year power purchase agreements. S