Sempra is sold on solar
Company expanding Nevada photovoltaic operations
By Onell R. Soto
STAFF WRITER
2:00 a.m. April 16, 2009
Sempra Energy unveiled its new solar facility, which uses thin-film technology, outside of Boulder City, Nev. Several measures are being taken to save money in building the facility. (Tiffany Brown / Las Vegas Sun) -
Jorge Uribe, a construction supervisor for the project, inspected solar panels at the Boulder City facility. (Sempra)
Jorge Uribe, a construction supervisor for the project, inspected solar panels at the Boulder City facility. (Sempra)
Sempra Energy says it has proven that it can inexpensively produce solar power and is greatly expanding its photovoltaic power operations in Nevada to supply customers in the Southwest.
“This project will provide the lowest-cost electricity from solar power ever delivered anywhere in the world,” Michael Allman, chief executive of subsidiary Sempra Generation, said yesterday in announcing a nearly five-fold increase in photovoltaic generation.
The San Diego company said that by the end of next year, it will complete construction of a 48-megawatt photovoltaic plant next to two other plants – a 10-megawatt solar facility and a 480-megawatt natural gas generator – that it owns in the desert.
He said the company wants to be the first to own more than 500 megawatts of solar generation. Engineers believe there is the potential for about 300 megawatts of solar next to the gas-fired Mesquite plant it runs west of Phoenix.
Sempra is also working on generating power using large wind turbines in northern Baja.
The Nevada solar plant, to be called Copper Mountain Solar, will power about 30,000 homes at peak production, the company said.
Allman wouldn't say how much the new solar plant will cost to build or how much the electricity it generates will cost. Electricity in California cost, on average, just under 13 cents a kilowatt-hour last year, the federal Energy Information Administration said.
First Solar of Tempe, Ariz., is expected to begin building the 380-acre plant this year. The 10-megawatt plant, which opened last year, took about six months to build.
Allman said costs are low because land is cheap, its nearly 830,000 solar panels will be installed assembly-line style and it is being built next to existing transmission lines. The plant will use thin-film technology, which produces less power per square inch, but is cheaper to manufacture.
The solar power will still be more expensive than the electricity generated by burning natural gas next door, Sempra said.
The company hasn't decided who will receive the power from the new 48-megawatt plant in Boulder City, Nev., about 40 miles southeast of Las Vegas.
It is talking with utilities in California, Nevada and Arizona, where government mandates are requiring that an ever-larger share of electricity comes from sources that don't burn fossil fuel.
Sempra also owns San Diego Gas & Electric, but the utility is operated independently from Sempra Generation. While SDG&E says it is looking to buy solar power, it's unclear whether it would make a deal with its sister company.
Such deals have to be done at arm's length through a bidding process, said SDG&E spokeswoman Jennifer Ramp.
To meet state mandates, SDG&E is counting on receiving 900 megawatts from Stirling Energy Systems of Phoenix. That company is working on a massive solar plant in Imperial County using solar-powered engines – a technology that has never been proven at large scale.
The utility is well behind meeting a state requirement that it get 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2010.
“SDG&E needs to get further down the renewable path,” said Mark Bachman, an analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, in San Francisco.
Pacific Gas & Electric in Northern California has a 20-year deal to purchase power from the 10-megawatt plant in Boulder City, where energy zoning has led to the development and planning of large solar plants.
On Tuesday night, Boulder City approved a lease of 1,000 acres to another company, NextLight, for a 100-megawatt photovoltaic plant.
And a Spanish-owned company, Acciona, operates a 68-megawatt solar plant that generates electricity by heating oil that then boils water to run a steam turbine.
In addition, much larger plants are in the works in California, including a 550-megawatt photovoltaic plant being planned for San Luis Obispo County. PG&E will buy power from that plant, also being built by First Solar.
Onell Soto: (619) 293-1280; onell.soto@uniontrib.com
In the Union-Tribune on Page C1
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