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Connecticut Church Sees The Sunlight

SHR Energy Management of Weston, Conn., and New York-based SunLight General Capital recently completed a 132 kW solar project on the rooftop of Black Rock Congregational Church in Fairfield, Conn.

SHR Energy developed the project over a two-year period, while SunLight General financed and provided construction services for the operation.

Built on the church’s newly installed flat rooftop, this project features 418 ReneSola panels with 1,000 VDC capability and 104 Hanwha panels with 600 VDC capability. According to SunLight General, the company elected to use Ecofoot 2 racking for its flexibility in tilt angle and to use four Solectria string inverters in order to hedge against a single point of failure in the system.

Noel Lafayette, the founder of SHR Energy Management, says that when he realized Black Rock was constructing a new building, he personally approached the church leadership and proposed that they integrate solar into their construction plan.

“Being local to the area, I saw that the church was being built and the roof was going to be brand new,” he says. “If you know you’re heading for new construction - whether you’re building from scratch, doing a major remodel or even just putting up a new roof - that’s the ideal time to involve solar.”

Stacey Hughes of SunLight General Capital says that although the project was initially scheduled for completion by November 2014, the project was delayed due to excessive snow and ice that persisted for nearly five months.

“Everything got shut down. It was really April when we got moving again,” she says.

In addition to the difficult winter season, Hughes says that financing a project of this size poses its own set of challenges. She explains that although the majority of commercial buildings in the U.S. could hold a solar project of this size, banks and other solar finance parties are sometimes wary of investing in a project that is too large to be residential and too small for the utility sector.

“This is a very typical size for buildings in the country, but it’s the most difficult project to finance. It’s not very big; neither is it very small,” she says. “I think we’re going to see a lot more investment in the coming years, but right now, it’s an investment in time and resources on a relatively small project.”

Despite this, Hughes says SunLight General was more than willing to finance the Black Rock project in order to get involved in the nonprofit space and to support community-oriented green energy.

“A lot of our investors are interested in putting their money to work in a socially responsible way. They like solar in general, but particularly for a nonprofit,” she adds. “It’s really a double win.”

The project was financed at no cost to the church, and Black Rock agreed to purchase the project’s output under a standard long-term power purchase agreement.

Lafayette says Black Rock leadership and the building committee of volunteers were extremely supportive throughout development.

“These guys were really great to work with. They were very energy-conscious, and they understood all of the implications of the program,” he says. “They designed [the building] from the get-go for maximum energy efficiency - every light bulb in there is LED - so solar just made sense. Working with the church was probably one of the better experiences I’ve had as a developer.”

According to Lafayette, the Black Rock project demonstrates how solar development is beneficial from a financial, environmental and community standpoint - even for projects that financiers may deem an “unfavorable” size.

“Solar is for everybody, and I don’t mean that in a tree-hugging way. Solar is applicable economically as well as environmentally to the middle market,” he says. “This is a perfect case in point.”

 

Enel Pairs CSP With Geothermal At Hybrid Stillwater Plant

Last year, Enel Green Power North America Inc. (EGP-NA) added a 2 MW trough-based concentrating solar power (CSP) component to its existing 33 MW Stillwater geothermal power facility in Churchill County, Nev.

The company is hoping the hybrid power station will pave the way for more such projects in the future.

William Price, vice president of geothermal engineering and construction at EGP-NA, says the transformation of Stillwater into a hybrid power facility has nothing to do with output problems. The project is producing electricity for NV Energy under a power purchase agreement (PPA).

“When we first looked at adding CSP to Stillwater, the idea was that we could greatly enhance its production profile, as well as offer an opportunity for risk mitigation,” Price says.

The risk-mitigation factor comes from the nature of geothermal plant design and operation. Stillwater’s geothermal component pumps heated geothermal fluid from a series of ground wells. The fluid is piped into heat exchangers that, in turn, heat a working fluid of isobutane to temperatures in excess of 370°F. At this fairly low temperature by power plant standards, the working fluid flashes into vapor, which drives an expansion turbine.

Price explains that this technology requires tremendous capital investment, which is essentially front-loaded. “When you drill those wells and build all that infrastructure, you are basically paying for the fuel source for the duration of the facility,” he says.

Geothermal projects have a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years. During that time, Price says, there can be significant variation in the performance of individual wells. Temperatures and pressures may rise and fall. There is no guarantee that a particular well is going to be providing working fluid appropriate for the generation of electricity. The idea, then, is for CSP to be able to provide a temperature boost for underperforming sections of the overall system by adding heat where it is required.

According to Price, Stillwater was a good candidate for conversion into a hybrid facility because it had existing infrastructure in place. This was also a challenge because, as an operational facility, it had to meet its contractual obligations for generating electricity. From a practical standpoint, this meant that EGP-NA could not shut down the plant for an extended period of time to do a major retrofit.

“Stillwater’s Golden Rule is that the CSP integration cannot interfere with the geothermal production,” Price says.

Again, the design of the geothermal system provided the means for adding the CSP portion. The various geothermal wells are grouped into branch connections that comprise the geothermal gathering system. The engineers deployed the CSP system to support a particular branch - the coolest one. While the integration work was in progress, the other branches remained unaffected.

“The geothermal plant is a heat-conversion machine,” Price says. “It doesn’t care how this heat was produced. What we were able to do with the solar addition is give the facility more heat to make more electricity with.”

It is worth noting that Stillwater also hosts a 26 MW photovoltaic plant, although this does not have any physical impact on the thermal portions of the plant. Yet, a PPA is all about delivering electrons. It doesn’t care how those electrons were produced.

Price says EGP-NA is well positioned to make hybrid energy plants practical because the company is agnostic about how renewable energy is produced. It has solar, wind, geothermal, hydro and biomass plants in its international portfolio. “We are able to understand the benefits of each and the weaknesses of each,” he says. “Moreover, we understand the advantages of combining technologies for the better of the whole.”

 

SunEdison Breaks Ground On 156 MW Comanche Solar Project

California-based SunEdison Inc. has closed financing and begun construction on the 156 MW Comanche Solar project in Pueblo, Colo.

Construction is being managed by Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc., based in Broomfield, Colo. Scheduled for completion in the first half of 2016, Comanche Solar will be the largest solar power plant east of the Rocky Mountains. The project is expected to produce more than 300 GWh of electricity per year. Operation and maintenance of the solar power plant will be performed by SunEdison Services.

SunEdison acquired Comanche Solar in 2014 from Community Energy. Public Service Co. of Colorado, a subsidiary of Xcel Energy, will purchase electricity generated by the plant under a 25-year power purchase agreement with SunEdison. The power contract was awarded as part of an open solicitation in which Comanche Solar was preferred to other forms of energy, including natural gas.

The Comanche Solar project will be financed through SunEdison’s First Reserve Warehouse holding company. Wells Fargo is providing tax equity for the project.

“SunEdison, through the Comanche Solar project, is helping move us in the right direction,” says David Eves, president of Public Service Co. of Colorado. “It demonstrates that large-scale solar power can play an increasingly larger role in our customers’ energy future at a competitive price point.”

 

SolarReserve Gets Approval For 260 MW Copiapo Solar

Santa Monica, Calif.-based SolarReserve has received environmental approval from Chile to develop the 260 MW Copiapo solar project.

Located in the Atacama region, the Copiapo project consists of two 120 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) towers with molten salt thermal energy storage combined with 150 MW of PV.

The hybrid CSP and PV facility will deliver 260 MW of baseload power 24 hours a day to Chile’s central interconnected system. Scheduled to achieve commercial operation in 2019, Copiapo is expected to produce over 1,800 GWh of electricity per year.

The project’s technology is based on SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes facility in the U.S., which is in the process of being commissioned.

“One of the fundamental goals for SolarReserve is minimizing the environmental impacts of our projects at every stage - from site selection and construction to full operational use,” says Kevin Smith, SolarReserve’s CEO.

 

Coronal Lost Hills Goes Online In California

Coronal Group LLC and Panasonic Eco Solutions have completed the 26 MW Coronal Lost Hills solar project in Kern County, Calif.

Coronal acquired the project in October 2014 from SunEdison, which was the original developer. Construction was completed in April.

“We came into the project just before design and construction started, essentially after all the discretionary permits had been received,” says Julie Ungerleider, senior vice president of engineering for Coronal Group.

The 220-acre facility, built by Panasonic and Swinerton Builders, incorporates 83,840 JinkoSolar 310 W modules mounted on Array Technology Inc.’s DuraTrack HZ trackers. The system has TMEiC central inverters.

The project is expected to generate approximately 54,620 MWh of electricity per year. The power is being supplied to Southern California Edison under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

The location was perfect in terms of its resources and permitting. The project was intended to center on a tracking PV facility from the outset. The solar irradiance of the location, environmental considerations, availability of land and the scale of the installation all made trackers attractive from a levelized-cost-of-energy perspective.

But there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter solar project.

“One of the interesting parts of this project was that it was developed on two sites about two-and-a-half miles apart,” Ungerleider says. “We connected these with a gen-tie line and then out to the point of interconnection.”

The project consists of two essentially identical 10 MW sections. The sites themselves are basically flat and were previously used for agriculture. This simplified the site preparation and construction work.

Ungerleider says that one of the unique aspects of the project was that the point of interconnection was about four miles from the farther site. Most of the gen-tie line runs above ground. However, there was a Lost Hills Water District canal that had to be crossed to reach the interconnection point. The gen-tie ran under the large concrete-lined canal, which added some complexity and required compliance with the water district’s specifications.

“That was a lengthy process because it had to go through the planning board and required a public hearing,” Ungerleider says. “The district was involved in the design and had people out observing the installation.”

Coronal Lost Hills incorporates a data acquisition system so that Coronal and Panasonic can monitor the site remotely. Panasonic is the operations and maintenance provider, and Coronal is the asset manager for the project.

Projects & Contracts

Connecticut Church Sees The Sunlight

 

 

 

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