Largest Solar PV Facility In California Opens

May 7th, 2013 by Important Media Cross-Post

I don’t think a day goes by when there isn’t another record broken in the solar industry. Here’s one of the latest, courtesy sister site Green Building Elements and Business Wire:

NRG Energy, Inc., through its wholly owned subsidiary NRG Solar, announced that it will commemorate the opening of the Alpine Solar Generating Facility in Lancaster, Calif., at a ribbon-cutting event [late last week].

The 66 megawatt (AC) Alpine solar photovoltaic facility, which started commercial operations earlier this year, is currently the largest fully operational solar plant in California. The cost-competitive, renewable power generated by the facility is being sold to PG&E under a 20-year power purchase agreement.

“The opening of Alpine marks a dramatic shift in the way energy is generated in California,” said Randy Hickok, senior vice president of NRG Solar. “As the largest operating photovoltaic facility in the state, Alpine is not only providing PG&E with a renewable source of energy, but contributing to cleaner air and a smaller carbon footprint for the state, ultimately helping meet California’s renewable portfolio standards.”

jburt56

Why not just make them at least 1 GW? Think like Emeril and up kick it!!
Bob_Wallace

test
Try Again

” or the equivalent of taking 6,600 cars off the road.”

I wish writers would stop with this analogy. The cars, as a percentage of the US fleet are NOT being taken off of the road. They are still on the road running at the same inefficient levels. Buses and mass transit, fuel embargoes, major catastrophe’s such as a
storm surge associated with a hurricane are the only things that take
cars off of the road, the latter only temporarily until people get their
insurance payout and buy a new vehicle which leads to the production of
another car to replace it on the lot.

A distinctly more relevant and apropos subject to compare this to would be taking a coal fire power-plant off line, or reducing the need for natural gas and the highly polluting drilling/fracking that goes along with it, reducing the need to mine for more uranium for the nuke industry, etc.