California Solar Startups Might Get Help in Unlikely Places
February 26, 2009 by editor
Filed under Solar News
California's Pacific Gas & Electric plans to build solar power plants over the next five years.
SAN FRANCISCO — California’s solar power market and its startups stand to gain from utilities making a direct play into renewable energy development, a prominent industry representative said in an interview yesterday.
Sue Kateley, executive director of the California Solar Energy Industries Association, said she welcomes Pacific Gas & Electric Co.’s decision this week to launch a five-year effort to build and own solar-run power plants totaling 250 megawatts. The deal, she said, is a sign that the state’s installers, distributors and manufacturers could find enough work to weather the economic downturn.
“It’s a win-win on either side,” said Kateley, who represents solar companies all along the supply chain.
San Francisco-based PG&E has backed its ownership plans with a second track under which the utility intends to help finance another 250 MW of development. PG&E CEO Peter Darbee said the company expects to spend $1.4 billion to see the entire 500 MW online by 2015.
California Debate Over Sunrise Powerlink May Be Near Decision
December 18, 2008 by admin
Filed under Solar News
Transmission lines near Boulevard in San Diego County. Many area residents have criticized a utility’s plan to erect what it calls a superhighway for green electricity as it tries to meet its renewable energy commitment.
The California Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the renewable energy transmission project, opposed by some environmentalists.
Reporting from Sacramento and Calipatria, Calif. - In the rural, arid flatlands near the Salton Sea, CalEnergy Generation is sitting on what California needs.
The Imperial County company taps steam heat from deep within the Earth’s crust to generate clean electricity, enough to light 238,000 homes.
There’s more where that came from. But whether further development of renewable energy ever happens at this Calipatria operation and dozens of proposed projects in California’s hinterlands may depend on what goes on in San Francisco, maybe as soon as today.
The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on a controversial transmission project known as the Sunrise Powerlink. The $1.9-billion high-voltage line would stretch more than 100 miles from Imperial County to San Diego, linking power plants in the desert to coastal cities hungry for their energy.
Sunrise Powerlink: From Prototype to Powerhouse
December 14, 2008 by admin
Filed under Solar News, Technology
San Diego Gas & Electric is betting that a startup company with an untested technology to generate solar power can provide it with much of the renewable energy it will need to meet a state mandate by 2010.
The plan is at the heart of SDG&E’s arguments that the Sunrise Powerlink, a proposed 1,000-megawatt line across the desert and mountains, is needed to bring renewable energy from the Imperial Valley.
Stirling Energy Systems proposes to build 30,000 mirrored dishes, each 40 feet wide and 38 feet tall, to focus sunlight onto engines smaller than a lawn mower
Meanwhile, the company behind the technology says it might not build its plant if Sunrise isn’t approved because it won’t have a way to sell its power.
Those issues and others will be on the table Thursday, when the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to decide whether Sunrise gets built and whether it should put any conditions on the line’s construction.
