Solar Power Takes Off in Nevada

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Info Resources; Houston, Texas). Solargenix, LLC (Raleigh, North Carolina) has kicked off construction of the 64-megawatt (MW) Solar One project in Boulder City, Nevada. When complete, this $230 million project will be one of the largest of its kind in the country.

It has been almost fifteen years since a plant of this kind has been built in the United States, and this one could be the start of a trend in this fast growing energy sector. Solar energy has predominantly been an untapped natural resource in this country due to the cost of materials and technology, which is much higher than wind energy. Similar concentrated solar plants were built in California, but this one has been engineered to rely less on natural gas to regulate it. What makes plants like Solar One special is the fact that they produce power at peak times of the day. As the sun heats up homes and businesses, this plant gathers those same rays and produces energy to cool them down again.

A major key to Solargenix keeping the costs down was the development of a light-weight and easy to assemble aluminum track system that will serve as the framing for the solar components. Parabolic troughs, provided by Flabeg of Germany, will focus light on to 19,300 vacuum tube steel and glass receivers, manufactured by Schott, also of Germany. These modules will heat a transfer fluid, which travels to a heat exchanger and in turn, create steam to fuel a 75 MW Siemens turbine generator. If this market continues to accelerate, Schott may consider moving some production to the U.S. This will allow them to be near their customers and even make similar projects more cost efficient. Lauren Engineers & Constructors, Incorporated (Abilene, Texas) will head the construction, and the scheduled completion of this project is set for March of 2007.

The energy produced from this plant will help keep Nevada on track to have 20% of their power generated by renewable sources by 2015. The requirements for solar energy will be met as soon as this project is completed. Long-term power purchase agreements have been reached with Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power to utilize the projected 130,000 megawatt-hours of electricity produced annually. This is enough energy to power 40,000 households, and the cleanliness of this facility will be equal to removing one million cars from U.S. highways.

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