Renewable Energy Solutions

Arizona Public Service Report says Distributed Energy Creates Value and Savings for Utility

A 2009 report calculating different scenarios for addition of solar to individual homes and offices in Arizona concludes that solar will ultimately the utility save money in operation and maintenance costs - the more solar the better. The report is interesting in light of Xcel energy's recent proposal to start charging solar customers more, claiming they would create a financial burden for Xcel. Download

Utility-Scale Solar

Utility-scale solar markets are growing rapidly with over 1,000 MW under construction and many projects in the pipeline - now estimated to be 15,000 MW. (www.emergingenergy.com)

Concentrating Solar

Concentrating solar is also known as "solar thermal" or "central station solar," and uses a combination of lenses or mirrors to focus the sun's heat upon tubes containing fluids - either water, molten salts or oils. The heated fluid is in turn used to drive steam turbines. The plants consist of two parts: one that collects solar energy and converts it to heat, and another that converts heat energy to electricity.

Concentrating solar - with its storage capacity - makes it the only renewable energy resource that can compete with fossil fuels as baseload power for a utility.  Unlike wind and photovoltaic solar, which can be intermittent depending on weather conditions, concentrating solar or any baseload power source serves a utililty predictably, day or night.

Utility-scale PV

Despite the intermittency, increasingly larger photovoltaic plants are on the drawing boards; Europe is the most advanced region with more than 1500 large-scale PV power plants currently in operation, followed by the USA with about 400 PV plants.

Concentrating Solar News & Upcoming Projects

Google proposes 4.4 Trillion Energy Plan

(October 01, 2008) - The proposal would yield a net saving of $1 trillion by 2030 and slash U.S. carbon dioxide emissions by 48 percent, according to Google, which said it had been busy "crunching the numbers."

Sky Fuel™ unveils new concentrating solar power system

SkyFuel hosted an event on October 9, 2008 to unveil its solar power plant system: a parabolic trough made from reflective plastic reducing costs by about 25%. Colorado Gov. Bill Rittner spoke at the event, held at SkyFuel's research center in Arvada, Colo.