Solar Thermal Power in the News
Today, The New York Times reviews the rising popularity of solar thermal power plants. These sprawling, usually desert-based facilities use mirrors to direct sunlight onto pipes carrying fluids which turn to steam that is forced through turbines to power electrical generators. Some plants use high-efficiency materials in insulated tanks, like molten salts, to trap thermal energy after sunset in order to sustain power through evening hours.
In the past, electricity generation by natural gas eclipsed solar thermal power because it offered a much lower price per unit of power, as The New York Times explains. The price of natural gas has risen, though, and demand for solar thermal power (which even now carries a high cost of about 15 to 20 cents per kilowatt-hour) has boomed. As economies of scale promise to reduce the price of solar thermal to around 10 cents per kilowatt-hour, it is becoming an attractive component of emerging low-carbon energy portfolios. Ten thermal solar power plants are now planned for construction in Arizona, California, and Nevada, including Solana, the largest one in the world near Phoenix, Arizona. Their output would equal that of three nuclear reactors, but they could be built in two years, instead of the decade or longer required for nuclear plants–a crucial consideration, given the urgency of carbon emissions reductions. However, solar thermal plants, because of their sheer size, can have a tremendous impact on desert ecosystems, and they often require long transmission lines for their connections to the grid.
Today, the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming heard from Barbara Lockwood, manager of renewable energy at Arizona Public Service Company, about the Solana solar power project in Arizona. The hearing focused on the need for greater investment in renewable energy technologies to help jump start a sputtering economy and foster domestic job creation. According to Ms. Lockwood, the Solana project will create 1,500 construction jobs and 85 permanent operations jobs and is estimated to bring one billion dollars to the Arizona economy as well as 300 to 400 million dollars of tax revenue over the thirty year life of the plant.
She encouraged Congress to renew the Investment Tax Credit, which is scheduled to expire at the end of the year. Without a long term extension of the ITC, she said, the Solana project is not only unaffordable, but unlikely to be completed. She asked for an eight-year extension and a revision of the ITC rules to make it available to public utilities. Current restrictions on the credit force a third-party owner to use the ITC, bringing unneeded risk and cost to the system.
Image: flickr.com/Desert Vu
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