Acciona Dedicates US’ First New Concentrating Solar Plant in 16 Years
Las Vegas, Nevada - The current period of sustained growth in the American Southwest is putting tremendous demands on important resources like water, wildlife habitat, and, with the light beaming from the top of Las Vegas’ Luxor Hotel as a reminder, electricity. Nevada currently gets about 90% of its electricity from fossil fuels, and the majority source fuel is natural gas. As natural gas prices are predicted to rise, a debate is stirring about whether the state needs to build new coal-fire power plants to meet current needs, or whether it should tap its renewable resource potential. For that reason, Acciona Energy could not have picked a better time than today to dedicate their new 64 MW concentrating solar power plant (CSP) in Boulder City, Nevada, less than thirty miles from the Las Vegas strip. And with a star-studded collection of speakers like Ed Begley Jr., NASA astronaut Dr. Sally Ride, and Apple co-founder and tech whiz Steve Wozniak, the Spanish-based Acciona dedicated the facility in true Las Vegas style.
The 300-acre site in Boulder City uses parabolic trough collectors to generate electricity. The 760 mirrored troughs track the movement of the sun’s path, and their 184,000 mirrors face the sky and concentrate the sunlight to a large metal and glass receiver in the middle of the trough that holds circulating oil. The oil travels to heat exchangers, which heat water and create steam that spins a turbine.
At 64 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity, Nevada Solar One is the largest CSP plant to be built in 16 years and it makes Nevada the largest per capita producer of solar power in the country. After roughly a decade of little growth for the industry, CSP is coming back strong, as is further evidenced by today’s announcement by Abengoa Solar that they will be building a 280 MW concentrating solar facility in Arizona.
The absence of any new CSP over the last 16 years leaves many people scratching their heads and asking themselves, why? There were some 354 MW of parabolic trough collectors installed in California’s Mojave Desert between 1984 and 1990. And those plants are still in operation, currently producing energy at around $0.12-$0.14/ per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The Nevada Solar One plant will produce electricity at around $0.15-$0.17/kWh.
Just by looking at the National Renewable Energy Labs CSP solar resource map, you
might surmise that the US desert southwest has the potential to be the Saudi Arabia of solar resources (although I suppose Saudi Arabia could also be considered the Saudi Arabia of solar resources). However, the federal government must take the lead and adopt policies and incentives that can provide the necessary investment security for companies like Acciona, and Abengoa, to continue their renewable energy development in the American Southwest. And who knows, maybe even an American company or two can get in on a little of this some day. Wouldn’t that be something?
Photo: Tinou Bau via flickr
Map: National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s TroughNet
