AZ maintaining top solar ranking

April 9, 2013 | By Barbara Vergetis Lundin

Arizona utilities are taking full advantage of the state's most prolific resource -- the sun. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association's (SEIA) 2012 U.S. Solar Market Insight Report from, Arizona ranks second nationally for solar installations and is first for the most utility-scale solar technology installed.

Credit: SRP

In 2012, Arizona Public Service (APS) added 148 MW of solar, a single-year record that is expected to more than double in 2013. APS will have more than 600 MW of solar on the system by the end of 2013, according to the utility.

Later this year, the 250 MW Solana Generating Station will come online and APS will purchase 100 percent of its power over the next 30 years.

Looking toward 2014, APS is building the 32-megawatt Gila Bend Solar Power Plant -- the seventh in its APS AZ Sun Program. Construction will begin in October 2013 and is expected to be completed in June 2014.

Salt River Project (SRP), another Arizona utility, has launched a 1 MW solar photovoltaic power plant at Arizona State University's (ASU) that utilizes a tracking system to concentrate the sun's power seven times to achieve one of the lowest levelized costs of electricity for solar power plants today. An added bonus is that the plant uses little of one of Arizona's not so abundant resources -- water.

Under a power purchase agreement, SRP is buying the entire output of the solar plant from SunPower, the plant's developer. ASU is purchasing the power from SRP under a separate agreement.

The ASU solar is the third commercial-scale solar facility in Arizona to provide energy for SRP.

For more:
- see the renewable energy compliance report

http://www.fierceenergy.com/story/az-maintaining-top-solar-ranking/2013-04-09