California Solar Power Projects Light Up

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The number of solar power projects is at a historic high for California, despite the permitting and financial hurdles that make the state's regulatory environment one of the toughest in the nation. California has almost $40 billion of solar capital projects scheduled to start construction in the next 24 months.

NextEra Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NEE) (Juno Beach, Florida) subsidiary Genesis Solar LLC (Tucson, Arizona) recently received approval from the California Energy Commission (CEC) to build the 250-megawatt (MW) Beacon Solar Energy Project near California City, California. The facility will be a concentrated solar power (CSP) plant that will use the sun to heat molten salt fluid to power a conventional steam turbine generator. The CEC hurdle is not the final step in the development process, which originally began in March 2008, when NextEra Energy filed an application for certification with the CEC. The solar project, which still has a couple of years before construction begins, must acquire a power purchase agreement from a regulated utility and obtain financing and construction permits before moving into the site-preparation and construction phases.

Avenal Solar Holdings LLC, a joint venture between Eurus Energy America Corporation (San Diego, California) and NRG Solar LLC (Carlsbad, California), a subsidiary of NRG Energy Incorporated (NYSE:NRG) (Princeton, New Jersey) collaborated on three solar projects near Avenal, California, and selected Quanta Renewable Energy Services (Aurora, Colorado) to provide engineering, procurement and construction services for the 20-MW Sun City solar project, the 19-MW Sand Drag solar project and the 9-MW Avenal solar project, all of which will use Sharp Corporation's (TYO:6753) (Osaka, Japan) thin-film photovoltaic modules to convert solar energy into direct-current renewable electricity.

Acciona Solar Power Incorporated (Henderson, Nevada) has received approval to build the 500-MW Fort Irwin Solar Park, a hybrid solar facility featuring solar thermal and photovoltaic technologies. This project is scheduled to begin construction in the second quarter of 2011.

Details of other renewable energy projects in the West Coast region of the United States can be found in August 17, 2010, article - West Coast Leads Nation in Third-Quarter Renewable Project Starts.

IIR's Renewable Energy Database provides extensive coverage on the wind energy, geothermal, hydroelectric, landfill gas-to-energy and utility-scale solar power plants throughout North America, and is now expanding coverage across the world.

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