Arizona-A Brave New Green Solar World

A new dawn is cresting on the horizon for Solar Energy as companies like Arizona Public Service (APS) take the leap into LARGE SOLAR. APS has announced plans to build a 280 Megawatt concentrating solar power plant southwest of Phoenix. Once up and operational, the Solana Generating Station will likely be the largest solar power plant on the planet, and provides great promise for a GREEN GRID ™. A unique thermal energy storage design will allow the plant to operate 24/7 providing power to 70,000 homes.

In news that the coal/nuclear folks do not want to hear, this project is only the beginning of what is possible, what is planned from the folks Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) is concerned. The sunlight striking the world’s deserts have the ability to produce 700 times the amount of primary energy demand we have in the world today. With the right public infrastructure built to support a GREEN GRID ™ LARGE SOLAR could reach 90 percent of the entire world’s population. Australia, Asia, Africa, North and South America all have expansive deserts. By satellite measurement there are 13,500,000 square miles (35 million square kilometers) of hot, dry, sunlit desert on the planet waiting for LARGE SOLAR develop, anxious to become part of a world wide GREEN GRID ™. The key to making a GREEN GRID ™ a reality is high voltage direct current (HVDC) lines. Bringing them in first would attract solar developers, expedite the economy of scale needed to make LARGE SOLAR from a GREEN GRID ™ the electric energy of choice. .

From a Green Collar Jobs perspective, construction of the plant will create up to 1500 clean green jobs during the construction phase of Solana. By 2011 the facility will have 85 skilled technicians. TREC has recently announced that it has joined a consortium of southwestern utilities that have an interest in constructing a similar LARGE SOLAR project. When these two LARGE SOLAR projects are completed, they will provide enough sun powered energy to replace half of a nuclear reactor. Abengoa Solar is the primary developer of the project.

TREC initiative founded in 2003 by The Club of Rome, Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation and the National Energy Research Center of Jordan.

Links:

Abengoa Solar
http://www.abengoasolar.com

TREC
http://www.desertec.org

APS
http://www.aps.com (White Paper)