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.