2008-08-15
In 'Leap Forward,' Nation's Largest PV Solar Plant Yet Will Be Built in California, By Matthew Wald, NYTimes, August 14, 2008. "Companies will build two solar power plants in California that together will put out more than 12 times as much electricity as the largest such plant today, the latest indication that solar energy is starting to achieve significant scale. The plants will cover 12.5 square miles of central California with solar panels, and in the middle of a sunny day will generate about 800 megawatts of power, roughly equal to the size of a large coal-burning power plant or a small nuclear plant. A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store. The power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, which is under a state mandate to get 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2010… The utility said that it expected the new plants, which will use photovoltaic technology to turn sunlight directly into electricity, to be competitive with other renewable energy sources, including wind turbines and solar thermal plants... OptiSolar, [which] has just begun making a type of solar panel with a thin film of active material, will install 550 megawatts in San Luis Obispo County. SunPower, which uses silicon-crystal technology, will build about 250 megawatts at a different location in the same county. The scale is a leap forward... The largest photovoltaic installation in the U.S., 14 megawatts, is at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada."
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