Solar Energy
In 1978, as a energy conservation planner at PG&E, Jon forecasted the growth for energy saving potential for solar water heating systems. He was a member of the Interutility Solar Task Force. Later, at Bechtel, he supported early planning for PG&E's Carrisa Plains Solar central power station, but the project was dropped. In the mid 1990's, Jon's Special Projects Group managed the EPC for the
Solar Two Molten Salt Central Receiver, a project led by Southern California Edison. Bechtel was a project participant providing both a portion of the funding and the EPC services to this $50 million project. This project supplied most of the data currently supporting energy storage offerings by several solar plant developers. Bill Gould, the Bechtel project manager for the effort, is now the Chief Technology Officer for
Solar Reserve, a company holding the proprietary technology licenses for the molten salt storage. Mark Skowronski, the SCE project director for Solar Two, formed a company that marketed technology to integrate solar technology with coal fired power plants.
Jon led a technology roadmapping effort for Bechtel Power Corporation that included solar trough combined cycle technology. He also negotiated a project development partnering agreement with Solel for this technology. However, after he left the scene, the agreement was not pursued. Others have developed the several solar trough projects in the current pipeline. Cogentrix has recently
bought SEGS I and II, the
first solar trough plants originally built by LUZ. Jon also participated in the development of a Solar Trough Combined Cycle technology
roadmapping effort that was led by NREL.
Current solar trough technology and project development suppliers include:
FPL No. 1 solar-power operator in the nation.
Brightsource Energy incorporates former Luz II organization. BrightSource has achieved numerous milestones over the past year. The company
now has 2.2 gigawatts of power under contract, including two of the largest solar power purchasing agreements in the world – a 1,300 MW deal with Southern California Edison and a 900 MW deal with PG&E. A new land deal is discussed in our
blog.
An interesting informal
history of PV is available online at Inventing Green.
Power for the Sun is also a useful reference. Jon's group managed early designs and installations for photovoltaic research at
PVUSA and a PV design installed on a laboratory rooftop at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. A roadmap for the PV industry was prepared by NREL a few years ago and is available for
download. EPRI has done some interesting
reviews.
Here is a copy of study of solar pv and solar thermal technologies in Australia and an EPRI
PV paper. PV
issues were also addressed by EPRI.
Firstlook is a useful source for solar resource definition. PV system costs are located
here.
Major suppliers of PV cell technology, PV systems and complete installations are numerous.
First Solar Inc is a major provider of thin film cells that is the first to announce the ability to manufacture cells for under $1 per watt. On March 2, 2009, they announced the purchase of the OptiSolar Inc. project portfolio which includes 1,300 megawatts of planned solar power projects and the rights to build solar farms on about 210 square miles of land, which could potentially handle up to 19 gigawatts of solar panels. The deal also includes a power purchase agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric Co. for a planned 550-megawatt solar farm in San Luis Obispo County. More information. Recurrent Energy announced a 350MW deal on March 18, 2009 that is covered in our blog.
A local firm California Solar Installers.Com is advertising on the web and via e-mail with a reasonably good website. It covers incentives/rebates, grants, solar pv, and solar hot water. There is also a website to identify installers in nearly every city in California. It includes California-specific links. Take a look at both websites.
Sun Edison has been particularly successful marketing PV installations with a performance contracting strategy that markets energy, not technology. They apparently have their own financing and installation capability which is different than the strategy discussed in the Management and Sustainability Blog.
According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, the U.S. ranks fourth in the world for installed solar power. Germany (with the solar resources of Alaska) is first, Japan is second, and Spain is third. At yearend 2007, the U.S. had just over 3,400 megawatts of installed solar power. This included 750 MW of PV, 418 MW of utility-scale concentrating solar power, and 2,250 MW (thermal equivalent) of solar hot water systems. Installed grid-tied solar PV grew more than 48 percent in 2007 compared to 2006. Growth was led by larger projects including the 14 MW solar PV installation at Nellis Air Force Base and large companies and big-box retailers adding solar to fleets of their buildings. The pool-heating market continued steady growth of 8 percent. And utility-scale grew 18 percent. Solar energy manufacturing grew 74 percent in 2007, led by expanded capacity of thin-film PV, silicon manufacturing (solar now outpaces the computer chip demand), and other equipment production.