14 September 2011 | Alan Bouquet
Energy, Legislation, North America

 

Solar troughs

The US Department of Energy has announced a huge $1.2 billion loan that will increase the US’s solar capacity by 50%. Abengoa's 250MW Mojave Solar Project (MSP) in San Bernardino County, California will be one of worlds largest Concentrated Solar Power Station, rivaling Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS) plant also in the Mojave.

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) focuses the suns energy using mirrors which in turn creates heat, which drives a turbine to produce energy. Whilst they can prove expensive, with some estimates putting CSP at a cost of 12 to 18 cents per kilowatt-hour compared to conventional energy at around 1.5 cents, newer facilities are considered to be better than photovoltaic costs and similar to natural gas.

The MSP will use an estimated 80% of total costs, through capital equipment and labor, from US sources including receiver tubes from a New Mexico facility and parabolic trough mirrors from an Arizona facility. PG & E, a large US utilities company is set to sell the energy over a contract lasting 25 years.

Energy secretary Steven Chu stated that, "this project will supply local utilities with energy, help drive down the cost of solar power and fund more than 900 American jobs, all at minimal risk to the taxpayer." Unfortunately, the loan guarantee scheme which has so far handed out $40 billion to renewables projects is set to finish next month and with budgets stretched in the Obama administration, this could be one of the last projects to benefit from government aid for some time.

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