Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Grand Valley Solar Tour Oct 3 2009
Solar Powered homes will be showcased from 9am to 2pm Free to the public. You are invited to join a self-guided tour throughout the Grand Valley. See how your neighbors are using solar energy and energy efficiency to reduce their monthly utility bills and increase the resale value of the home; Find out how you can too!
GREG (Grand Valley Renewable Energy & Efficiency Group) members are local businesses that work together to ensure the Grand Valleys’ renewable energy needs are represented, and to create more opportunities for sustainability in our community. Current members include High Noon Solar, Atlasta Solar Center, Simplicity Solar, and Ecofly Renewable Energies.
Everyone in the community is invited to the ASES National Solar Tour. Look for our map in the Free Press on Friday, October 2nd or at greggroup.org. It’s a great way to see many solar powered homes in your area and talk to solar professionals. The tour is the world's largest grassroots solar event – “which is a direct result of the efforts of local organizers.”
It takes place annually during the first Saturday in October in conjunction with National Energy Awareness Month. Thank you.
GREG (Grand Valley Renewable Energy & Efficiency Group) members are local businesses that work together to ensure the Grand Valleys’ renewable energy needs are represented, and to create more opportunities for sustainability in our community. Current members include High Noon Solar, Atlasta Solar Center, Simplicity Solar, and Ecofly Renewable Energies.
Everyone in the community is invited to the ASES National Solar Tour. Look for our map in the Free Press on Friday, October 2nd or at greggroup.org. It’s a great way to see many solar powered homes in your area and talk to solar professionals. The tour is the world's largest grassroots solar event – “which is a direct result of the efforts of local organizers.”
It takes place annually during the first Saturday in October in conjunction with National Energy Awareness Month. Thank you.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Xcel Explores Potential of Concentrated Solar
Xcel Explores Potential of Concentrated Solar
by Allen Best
09.17.09 - 05:18 pm
Unique Experiment Launched East of Grand JunctionDENVER – Any economic booster’s promotion kit for Colorado cheerily announces the state’s 300 days of sunshine per year.In reality, old sol lounges at some places more than others, and a map posted on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory website shows the sunshine intensity for the West. In comparison to the painful-looking road rash of California’s Mojave Desert, the San Luis Valley in Colorado looks like a bad bruise. Still, it’s the sunniest swath of Colorado. Pockets near Grand Junction, Fairplay and the Four Corners also look bruised, at best.But seen in another light, those bruises look like gold. Some of the world’s best minds have concluded that solar energy remains the most promising of the renewable sources for a long-term energy foundation.In this transformation, Colorado could become a major player. Nate Lewis, a professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, has calculated that an area of southeastern Colorado and adjoining areas of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas could by itself convert enough solar energy into electricity to meet the nation’s existing needs.As this was the setting for the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, this suggests a rags-to-riches story as the nation pushes to decarbonize its economy.Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electrical supplier, has already created an eight-megawatt farm of photovoltaic panels near Alamosa in the San Luis Valley.Now, a less familiar type of technology called concentrated solar power is being deployed east of Grand Junction at the Cameo coal-fired power plant, where Abenoga Solar is partnering with Xcel Energy to erect parabolic mirrors on 6.4 acres. The mirrors will redirect the sun’s rays to a central unit, where fluid will be heated to produce steam and hence generate electricity.This is just a tiny step. Cameo, among the smallest of Xcel’s power plants in Colorado, generates 77 megawatts of electricity by burning coal. This new solar unit will add just 1 megawatt.This is the first concentrated solar plant in Colorado, although it’s likely not the last. Xcel has proposed to state regulators adding 280 megawatts of concentrated solar and other cutting-edge technology, including geothermal, to its portfolio, along with 700 megawatts of energy from wind and photovoltaic sources. The company currently produces 54 percent of its electricity by burning coal.The basic technology of concentrated solar has been around for decades. Installations in the Mojave Desert altogether can produce 350 megawatts of electricity. Huge up-front costs have held it back. But now, with coal and natural gas more expensive than 20 years ago, concentrated solar is starting to shine.“It’s a proven technology,” says Chuck Kutscher, one of NREL’s leading researchers in concentrated solar at its campus in Golden. He points to a new 64-megawatt plant near Las Vegas, a 259-megawatt plant being built to supply Phoenix, and proposals –- backed up by cash down-payments -– that could theoretically yield 97,000 megawatts of solar power, most of it from installations in the Mojave Desert.Kutscher points out that energy captured by concentrated solar can be retained for six hours through the medium of molten salt.. Batteries can store electricity produced by photovoltaic panels, but at much higher costs.“It produces power in a way that utility folks are familiar with,” says Kutscher.Costs remain higher than coal or even natural gas. The new plant in Arizona, for example, will produce electricity at an estimated cost of 14 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s wholesale. In Colorado, the retail cost of electricity runs about 10 cents a kwh.But while sunshine can be expected to cost the same for decades, natural gas has been subject to wild price swings. A year ago it was selling for more than $13 per million British thermal units; in early September the price was $2.35 at the Opal Hub in Wyoming.Xcel plans to close Cameo, an old coal-fired plant, next year. Before it does, however, this provides an opportunity to kick the tires of this idea of integrating solar with coal for possible application elsewhere. It is the first such attempt in the world.If successful, more electricity can be generated without expanding the carbon footprint, says Randy Larson, senior project manager for Xcel.“Colorado is not the prime location for solar, but it has some very good locations,” says Larson. “Grand Junction is pretty good. Pueblo is good, although not as good as the Mojave.”Leslie Glustrom, director of an activist group called Clean Energy Action, says Xcel has changed its mind about the value of concentrated solar since 2007. “All told, we have a lot to be grateful for,” says Glustrom, who sued Xcel in an effort to block the utility’s construction of a 750-megawatt coal-fired plant called Commanche III, which will go on line later this year at Pueblo.Carol Tombari, author of Power of the People: America’s Electrical Choices, calls concentrated solar a sleeper. She notes significant venture capital has been invested in concentrated solar. “Yes, venture capital sometimes makes mistakes. But on the order of magnitude that has been invested in this, I’d say it’s going to succeed.” How it succeeds still remains in doubt. In theory, solar from Colorado could be used to light Los Angeles. Already, LA gets power from the Pacific Northwest, 1,000 miles away. But the cost of building this new transmission remains a major challenge, both financially and, to an extent, environmentally. The journey to this El Dorado of sunshine-based wealth still has plenty of shadows, says Kelly Murphy, who organizes conferences about energy topics. Even California, with an earlier timeline for increasing its renewable energy portfolio, has struggled to connect metropolitan markets with the energy available in the sun-soaked Mojave Desert, he says.Many energy analysts see concentrated solar being part of a much bigger mix of renewables that together are stronger than the sum of their parts.Hank Price, who manages the engineering for Abenoga Solar in Colorado, sees need for a diverse set of renewable resources. “If you were really thinking, you would throw in hydroelectric, wind and perhaps geothermal, and you could have a nice renewable mix,” he says. The intermittency of wind and other renewables makes them difficult to integrate to create steady so-called base-load generation.
© telluridewatch.com 2009
by Allen Best
09.17.09 - 05:18 pm
Unique Experiment Launched East of Grand JunctionDENVER – Any economic booster’s promotion kit for Colorado cheerily announces the state’s 300 days of sunshine per year.In reality, old sol lounges at some places more than others, and a map posted on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory website shows the sunshine intensity for the West. In comparison to the painful-looking road rash of California’s Mojave Desert, the San Luis Valley in Colorado looks like a bad bruise. Still, it’s the sunniest swath of Colorado. Pockets near Grand Junction, Fairplay and the Four Corners also look bruised, at best.But seen in another light, those bruises look like gold. Some of the world’s best minds have concluded that solar energy remains the most promising of the renewable sources for a long-term energy foundation.In this transformation, Colorado could become a major player. Nate Lewis, a professor of chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, has calculated that an area of southeastern Colorado and adjoining areas of New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas could by itself convert enough solar energy into electricity to meet the nation’s existing needs.As this was the setting for the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, this suggests a rags-to-riches story as the nation pushes to decarbonize its economy.Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electrical supplier, has already created an eight-megawatt farm of photovoltaic panels near Alamosa in the San Luis Valley.Now, a less familiar type of technology called concentrated solar power is being deployed east of Grand Junction at the Cameo coal-fired power plant, where Abenoga Solar is partnering with Xcel Energy to erect parabolic mirrors on 6.4 acres. The mirrors will redirect the sun’s rays to a central unit, where fluid will be heated to produce steam and hence generate electricity.This is just a tiny step. Cameo, among the smallest of Xcel’s power plants in Colorado, generates 77 megawatts of electricity by burning coal. This new solar unit will add just 1 megawatt.This is the first concentrated solar plant in Colorado, although it’s likely not the last. Xcel has proposed to state regulators adding 280 megawatts of concentrated solar and other cutting-edge technology, including geothermal, to its portfolio, along with 700 megawatts of energy from wind and photovoltaic sources. The company currently produces 54 percent of its electricity by burning coal.The basic technology of concentrated solar has been around for decades. Installations in the Mojave Desert altogether can produce 350 megawatts of electricity. Huge up-front costs have held it back. But now, with coal and natural gas more expensive than 20 years ago, concentrated solar is starting to shine.“It’s a proven technology,” says Chuck Kutscher, one of NREL’s leading researchers in concentrated solar at its campus in Golden. He points to a new 64-megawatt plant near Las Vegas, a 259-megawatt plant being built to supply Phoenix, and proposals –- backed up by cash down-payments -– that could theoretically yield 97,000 megawatts of solar power, most of it from installations in the Mojave Desert.Kutscher points out that energy captured by concentrated solar can be retained for six hours through the medium of molten salt.. Batteries can store electricity produced by photovoltaic panels, but at much higher costs.“It produces power in a way that utility folks are familiar with,” says Kutscher.Costs remain higher than coal or even natural gas. The new plant in Arizona, for example, will produce electricity at an estimated cost of 14 to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s wholesale. In Colorado, the retail cost of electricity runs about 10 cents a kwh.But while sunshine can be expected to cost the same for decades, natural gas has been subject to wild price swings. A year ago it was selling for more than $13 per million British thermal units; in early September the price was $2.35 at the Opal Hub in Wyoming.Xcel plans to close Cameo, an old coal-fired plant, next year. Before it does, however, this provides an opportunity to kick the tires of this idea of integrating solar with coal for possible application elsewhere. It is the first such attempt in the world.If successful, more electricity can be generated without expanding the carbon footprint, says Randy Larson, senior project manager for Xcel.“Colorado is not the prime location for solar, but it has some very good locations,” says Larson. “Grand Junction is pretty good. Pueblo is good, although not as good as the Mojave.”Leslie Glustrom, director of an activist group called Clean Energy Action, says Xcel has changed its mind about the value of concentrated solar since 2007. “All told, we have a lot to be grateful for,” says Glustrom, who sued Xcel in an effort to block the utility’s construction of a 750-megawatt coal-fired plant called Commanche III, which will go on line later this year at Pueblo.Carol Tombari, author of Power of the People: America’s Electrical Choices, calls concentrated solar a sleeper. She notes significant venture capital has been invested in concentrated solar. “Yes, venture capital sometimes makes mistakes. But on the order of magnitude that has been invested in this, I’d say it’s going to succeed.” How it succeeds still remains in doubt. In theory, solar from Colorado could be used to light Los Angeles. Already, LA gets power from the Pacific Northwest, 1,000 miles away. But the cost of building this new transmission remains a major challenge, both financially and, to an extent, environmentally. The journey to this El Dorado of sunshine-based wealth still has plenty of shadows, says Kelly Murphy, who organizes conferences about energy topics. Even California, with an earlier timeline for increasing its renewable energy portfolio, has struggled to connect metropolitan markets with the energy available in the sun-soaked Mojave Desert, he says.Many energy analysts see concentrated solar being part of a much bigger mix of renewables that together are stronger than the sum of their parts.Hank Price, who manages the engineering for Abenoga Solar in Colorado, sees need for a diverse set of renewable resources. “If you were really thinking, you would throw in hydroelectric, wind and perhaps geothermal, and you could have a nice renewable mix,” he says. The intermittency of wind and other renewables makes them difficult to integrate to create steady so-called base-load generation.
© telluridewatch.com 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Xcel seeks to expand solar rebate program
Xcel seeks to expand solar rebate program
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Xcel Energy filed a request Monday with the Colorado Public Utilities Commission to expand its Solar*Rewards program and meet the requirements of the Renewable Energy Financing Act of 2009.
The act, also known as Colorado Senate Bill 51, goes into effect today. The act intends to make alternative energy more affordable and accessible to consumers by increasing the amount the state can loan for clean energy projects and expanding the loan pool to more projects.
Solar*Rewards offers rebates to solar power users. The rebate amount depends on the size of the system.
The law also allows the owner of a solar power system to sell electricity to people that have the solar equipment on their property if the equipment supplies no more than 120 percent of the average electricity amount used by the typical Colorado household or business in a year. That’s why Xcel is proposing changing its energy cap on new metered solar power systems to the 120 percent limit and allowing a rewards customer to buy solar-generated electricity from a company.
Xcel would also like to change the Solar*Rewards program to include all 100 to 500 kilowatt systems that apply for a Solar*Rewards contract. These large systems did not always win a contract with Xcel in the past.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Cameo Plant and Solar
First-of-its-kind solar operation going up next to Cameo plant
By EMILY ANDERSON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Xcel Energy’s Cameo Station will have a new neighbor during its last anticipated year of operation.
Xcel and Abengoa Solar broke ground on a solar power plant Thursday in a field west of the coal-fired Cameo plant. Abengoa Solar, which is based in Seville, Spain, but has a U.S. headquarters in Lakewood, will hire 25 construction workers to build a demonstration solar plant from September through the end of the year.
It will be the first solar plant in the world to combine solar and fossil fuels to produce electricity, Xcel said. The demonstration year will give Xcel and Abengoa a chance to see if it’s efficient to use the two together.
Combining operations could allow the Cameo plant to use 900 fewer tons of coal in 2010 and reduce the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 tons, according to Xcel project engineer Randy Larsen.
The demonstration plant will remain in operation for one year. After that, the plant may move or cease operation, Xcel Energy Supply President David Wilks said. If the demonstration year proves successful, it’s not likely the solar plant will stay in Mesa County, Larsen said.
Plans for the solar panels are up in the air after the end of 2010, but the Cameo closing is all but certain, Wilks said.
“Plants have a certain lifetime, and this one is 52 years old,” he said.
The solar plant will not directly generate electricity by itself, which is what makes it different from previous ones. Instead, the plant will aid the Cameo coal plant in producing electricity.
Coal is heated to run a turbine that generates electricity. The solar plant will heat water with the sun’s rays. That will produce steam to help heat the boiler where the coal goes. The hot air from the boiler churns the turbine that helps the plant’s generator create electricity. This method is called concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, said Hank Price, Abengoa’s vice president of technology development in North America. Abengoa’s Colorado employees developed the technology.
Solar power will help add 50 degrees to Cameo’s boiler, meaning less coal is needed.
Each panel included in the solar plant will consist of parabolic metal structures with mirrors on them. The mirrors are designed to follow the sun as it crosses the sky from dawn until dusk in order to collect the maximum amount of sunlight.
By EMILY ANDERSON/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Xcel Energy’s Cameo Station will have a new neighbor during its last anticipated year of operation.
Xcel and Abengoa Solar broke ground on a solar power plant Thursday in a field west of the coal-fired Cameo plant. Abengoa Solar, which is based in Seville, Spain, but has a U.S. headquarters in Lakewood, will hire 25 construction workers to build a demonstration solar plant from September through the end of the year.
It will be the first solar plant in the world to combine solar and fossil fuels to produce electricity, Xcel said. The demonstration year will give Xcel and Abengoa a chance to see if it’s efficient to use the two together.
Combining operations could allow the Cameo plant to use 900 fewer tons of coal in 2010 and reduce the plant’s carbon dioxide emissions by 200,000 tons, according to Xcel project engineer Randy Larsen.
The demonstration plant will remain in operation for one year. After that, the plant may move or cease operation, Xcel Energy Supply President David Wilks said. If the demonstration year proves successful, it’s not likely the solar plant will stay in Mesa County, Larsen said.
Plans for the solar panels are up in the air after the end of 2010, but the Cameo closing is all but certain, Wilks said.
“Plants have a certain lifetime, and this one is 52 years old,” he said.
The solar plant will not directly generate electricity by itself, which is what makes it different from previous ones. Instead, the plant will aid the Cameo coal plant in producing electricity.
Coal is heated to run a turbine that generates electricity. The solar plant will heat water with the sun’s rays. That will produce steam to help heat the boiler where the coal goes. The hot air from the boiler churns the turbine that helps the plant’s generator create electricity. This method is called concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, said Hank Price, Abengoa’s vice president of technology development in North America. Abengoa’s Colorado employees developed the technology.
Solar power will help add 50 degrees to Cameo’s boiler, meaning less coal is needed.
Each panel included in the solar plant will consist of parabolic metal structures with mirrors on them. The mirrors are designed to follow the sun as it crosses the sky from dawn until dusk in order to collect the maximum amount of sunlight.
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