Abengoa Solar has signed a power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) to supply the electricity generated by the new Mojave Solar plant. The project will generate 250 MW of concentrating solar power (CSP) and will be located in San Bernardino County, approximately 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles.
The project will be sited on 1,765 acres of private, previously disturbed land that had been farmed since the 1920s but is now largely fallow. The solar plant will use significantly less water per acre than was used for agricultural purposes, Abengoa explains.
‘The location has been carefully chosen, and the plant has been specifically configured to minimize environmental impacts on the desert,’ says Scott Frier, chief operating officer of Abengoa Solar Inc.
Once it starts operating in 2013, it will generate nearly as much electricity as all of California's present-day commercial CSP installations combined – enough to power about 90,000 average homes – and avoid over 431 kilotons per year of greenhouse gas emissions, according to Abengoa Solar.
The project is expected to create 1,200 green construction jobs and, when completed, approximately 80 permanent jobs. Construction on the project is expected to begin by the end of 2010, subject to financing under the U.S. economic stimulus legislation.
SOURCE: Abengoa Solar
