First Solar to Build New Mexico Solar Projects Totaling 20 MW for PNM

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First Solar announced that it is to construct four solar power plants that will be able to generate a combined 20 MW of AC power for PNM Resources Incorporated. They will be able to power up to 6,700 homes.

These new solar projects are in addition to five projects totaling 22 MW that First Solar completed for PNM in 2011, and they could be operational as early as 2013. Although, the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission has to approve the project first, which can delay it, but it is supposed to make its final decision in the fourth quarter of 2012.

“First Solar is very pleased to be working again with a leader in renewable energy like PNM,” said Jim Tyler, First Solar Vice President of Engineering, Procurement and Construction. “Our advanced technology and unparalleled experience designing and building solar power plants will help ensure PNM’s customers enjoy many years of clean, reliable solar electricity.”
 


 
Note: I’ve started appending AC to my power plant capacity figures because not all power plants and transmission infrastructure are AC, some is DC (but DC is still uncommon). HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) power infrastructure might actually take over one day.

Source: First Solar

Nicholas Brown (341 Posts)

I have a keen interest in physics-intensive topics such as electricity generation, refrigeration and air conditioning technology, energy storage, geography, and much more. My website is: Kompulsa.


  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Bruce-Miller/100000952005408 Bruce Miller

    My favourite cut and paste from the web, old now but still valid and now being realized in New Mexico:
    “Had the $4 Trillions+ spent on Iraq,
    been spent even only on conventional Solar/Thermal development of South Western U.S.A. – Today, Americans would receive a huge ROI (“Return On Investment”) in cheap electricity, in place of horrendous tax rates to service unpayable war debt to China.
    Americans would be gainfully working, using this renewable,
    perpetual, eternal, clean, radiation free, radioactive waste free, domestic, electricity source – to compete in world markets with well priced products, to irrigate dry lands, to heat and cool homes, and much less foreign oil would have be imported, fewer “Parasite Nations” supported. This is the lost “opportunity cost” for having Saddam’s scrotum on the Bushes mantlepiece? Shiite eh!”
    P.S., (Oil, gas, wells do go dry, not
    really sourced from an eternal pipe up &Allah’s-ass, as some
    believe – But, the Sun never stops shining, Wind blows forever)
    Fossil fuels about to be outmoded by scientific advances? Not for a while, but eventually. Even the Thorium Energy fact from the Pan Eurasian sectors will change the face of the world in decades.
    Favorite Thorium Sites:
    (See:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UT2yYs5YJs)
    (See:http://www.investmentu.com/2011/September/thorium-the-future-of-nuclear-power.html)
    (www.theoildrum.com/node/4971)
    http://singularityhub.com/2012/12/11/norway-begins-four-year-test-of-thorium-nuclear-reactor/
    http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/bulletin/son-of-chinas-ex-president-thorium-will-help-shape-countrys-energy-future/7269?tag=search-river
    Also Google Tsinghua University, pebble bed reactors and more! Exciting new science world from Asia and Norway out their for us all!

    • Bob_Wallace

      Nuclear is too expensive to be considered.

      When someone actually able to generate electricity from a new nuclear plant for less than $0.10/kWh then get back to us.

      That’s ten cents including financing charges. The West is not going to build rectors with taxpayer dollars.

      Long screeds about unproven ideas aren’t useful.