California May See Boom in Solar Power Plants

Sep 25 - San Jose Mercury News

California's push for energy from the sun could turn the Golden State into the Saudi Arabia of the solar power industry.

"California has a huge share of America's best sunshine," said John O'Donnell, vice president at Palo Alto-based Ausra. His company soon will announce the location of a 175-megawatt solar plant to be built in California, and recently received $40 million in venture funding.

He's not alone. The California Energy Commission identifies six plants that could produce 2,400 megawatts of power total on a list of "large solar energy projects" that have been proposed. Spokesman Bob Aldrich said staffers have talked with representatives of another eight proposed plants that could generate as much as 1,770 additional megawatts.

In all, Aldrich said, the backers of 34 projects that could produce as much as 24,000 megawatts of power have filed right-of-way requests for federal land in California. One megawatt is enough power for between 750 and 1,000 California homes.

With 354 megawatts of power coming from nearly 20-year-old solar plants, California already is the largest solar producer in the world, Aldrich said. The proposed projects could provide more than 65 times as much power, although the commission doesn't expect all to be built.

Oakland-based BrightSource Energy is the company making the first move toward building a new plant. It recently asked the state's Energy Commission for permission to construct the first new solar plant in nearly 20 years. It plans to generate 400 megawatts of power in the Ivanpah dry lake bed near I-15 just across the border from Primm, Nev.

Solar thermal, also known as concentrating solar power technology, offers "a cost-effective alternative" to conventional power plants, said PG&E spokesman Keely Wachs, especially since the time when the sun shines brightest, in the late afternoon, correlates to when power demand peaks. Although technologies vary, all the proposed plants use mirrors to heat a liquid to create steam to run a turbine that generates electricity.

In other developments:

--In July, Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli company, announced a 25-year contract to supply Pacific Gas & Electric with 553 megawatts of solar power from a Mojave Desert plant. Construction will begin in 2009 with power generation starting in 2011. The company is in the process of picking a location.

--Stirling Energy Systems, based in Phoenix, has announced plans to build two plants in Southern California -- an 850-megawatt facility in San Bernardino County and a 900-megawatt one in Imperial County -- with plans to sell power to a Southern California utility. The timetable for those facilities remains uncertain, Aldrich said.

--Plans for the Harper Lake Energy Park, in San Bernardino County, includes two 80-megawatt plants owned by a subsidiary of Florida Power & Light, as well as plans for five more 100-megawatt plants to be built by 2010, according to the company's Web site. That power will be "sold on Southern California's electricity grid as renewable energy."

What has made solar power such a hot topic? Well, California's movement toward reducing greenhouse gases and using more renewable sources of power is a key factor. The state wants 20 percent of its power to come from renewable sources such as the sun and the wind by 2010, and one-third by 2020.

Meeting a goal of 33-percent renewable by 2020, only 13 years from now, would require 17,000 megawatts of power, said Ausra's O'Donnell. "Building that is something like a $50 billion investment, and there's a bunch of companies that are charging along on that," he said.

Technological improvements have helped, too. That includes getting mirrors to point precisely at the sun as well as stronger turbines.

Big solar plants built by Luz in the Mojave in 1980s continue to generate power today. But technology has greatly improved since than, said J. Stephan Dolezalek, managing director of VantagePoint Venture Partners in San Bruno, which invested in BrightSource.

"What if we created ... a system of much larger mirrors each in a Wifi network with a GPS (navigation) system that rotates so that instead of having a curved mirror, we'll have a giant system of flat mirrors that automatically reconfigure themselves to follow the sun," he said.

Reese Tisdale, a senior analyst with Emerging Energy Research in Cambridge, Mass., says he's "optimistic absolutely" about forecasting growth in the solar-thermal market. "There will definitely be a lot more projects," he said.

Solar thermal costs about 22 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the Energy Commission. That includes the cost of building the plant. Natural gas plants cost about 9 cents per kilowatt hour.

Both Ausra and BrightSource said they intend to offer solar power at prices that compete with gas.

"Our technology is there," said Robert Fishman, an energy-industry veteran who becomes Ausra's chief executive next month after leaving Calpine. "The key element, in addition to making it work reliably, is driving down the cost."

Challenges remain, perhaps paying for and building transmission lines from remote desert locations to energy users being the most significant one. Last week, a consortium of the state's Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission, the Independent System Operator that runs those lines and three utilities was formed to address these issues.

The Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative will identify the most important transmission projects related to renewable energy in California and nearby states. Its first meeting was held Sept. 20.

Contact Matt Nauman at mnauman@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5701.

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