A California Energy Commission committee has recommended approval of another desert solar power project, raising to about 2,100 megawatts the rated peak capacities of
solar power plants now awaiting final endorsement by the full commission.
That is approximately equal to the entire U.S. solar production capacity at the end of last year, which totaled an estimated 2,108 megawatts, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association’s “Year in Review 2009.”
A megawatt of nominal peak production capacity is equal to a million watts of potential power generation under ideal conditions at a particular point in time. For comparison, the largest power plant in California, a natural-gas plant at Moss Landing on Monterey Bay, has a peak capacity of 2,484 mw, but unlike a solar plant, can generate electricity night and day by burning fuel.
The state’s nuclear power plants, at Diablo Canyon in Central California and San Onofre in Southern California, have peak capacities of 2,202 and 2,254 mw respectively. Most power plants do not ordinarily operate at their rated peak capacities, although large plants that provide “baseload” generation to meet the state’s minimum electricity needs may run at close to capacity for much of the time.
The latest solar proposal to receive endorsement from a siting committee of the California Energy Commission is called the Genesis Solar Energy Project and would be built about 25 miles west of Blythe, Calif., in the state’s “low desert,” the Colorado, part of the larger Sonoran Desert.
The complex would consist of two power plants, each with 125 mw of production capacity. Unlike solar photovoltaic modules, which produce electricity by direct conversion of sunlight, these plants would use parabolic mirrors to heat a fluid, which would be used to create steam. The pressurized steam would drive a turbine generator, in much the same way electricity is typically generated from coal, nuclear or natural-gas power plants.
In its presiding member’s proposed decision, the siting committee said the proposed 250-mw complex, with recommended mitigation measures, would have a significant impact on the environment. However, the proposed decision concludes that the benefits of the project would override the environmental impacts, the Energy Commission said in a news release. The committee determined that the project complies with all applicable laws, ordinances, regulations and standards.
In addition to the Genesis project, the Energy Commission has issued proposed decisions over the past month recommending approval of the 250-mw Abengoa Mojave Solar Project; the 250-mw Beacon Solar Energy Project; the 1,000-mw Blythe Solar Power Project; and the 370-mw Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System project. All of these power plants would be located in Southern California’s Colorado or Mojave deserts, and all would use forms of solar thermal technology that deploy large fields of mirrors, not the photovoltaic modules increasingly seen on California homes and businesses.
Some of the proposed solar power plants would be located on public land managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management, which has been issuing final Environmental Impact Statements at a rapid pace. The bureau and the state are cooperating to “fast-track” nine large solar power plant projects that could be eligible for federal Recovery Act funding. Four proposed solar plants in Nevada and one in Arizona are also under fast-track status, which the bureau says results in the same environmental scrutiny as other projects.
