Governor Patterson (Google Images)
While Congress continues to debate renewable energy portfolios and infrastructure development, individual states and companies continue to move forward.
On Wednesday, Pacific Gas and Electric announced a deal with solar company, BrightSource Energy for the production of 1,310 megawatts of solar thermal power. There are seven projects in the deal, with the first expected to begin operations in 2012, and all being operational by 2017.
The projects still need to be reviewed and approved by the California Public Utilities Commission. But if it all works out, 530,000 homes will get their peak-hours electricity from the power produced from the BrightSource solar plants.
And this afternoon, New York Governor, David Patterson announced that the Empire State's two power authorities will purchase 150 megawatts of solar through a new program that the governor hopes will make New York the second largest solar power producer in the country. The plan could also end up creating nearly 50,000 jobs.
Patterson has also been quite aggressive in the creation of a new “smart corridor” on Long Island. This “smart corridor” will help customers of the Long Island Power Authority monitor and reduce their energy use. And $25 million has also been set aside to advance the development of Plug-In Hybrids.
For more info: Smart Corridor, Solar Investing
Comments
Peaks hours of demand is NOT when those solar collectors will be producing their max output.
In the winter, fall and spring peak demand occurs when the sun is producing very little
energy on their collectors.
Wonder where the 50K jobs comes from? Certainly not form a measly 150 megawatts
solar thermal generator (that's peak output - most of the day's 24 hours the solar plant won't be producing either nothing, or not much of anything). Do we really want the consumer to have to pay for 50,000 new jobs to produce what we already have?
VULVOX Inc.s breakthrough collectors will be able to generate electricity with 55% efficiency or greater. The enrgy can be stored in molten salt tanks that hold the heat for 24 hours or longer if desired.
The dual solar thermal-photovoltaic system will wrest approximately twice as much power from an area as regular solar thermal or photovoltaic energy systems. Our technology can be used to retrofit existing parabolic troughs and solar power towers to increase their efficiency. Besides applications at utility scale solar power plants that are contributing electricity to the California power grid, they will also have an important advantage in the upcoming industry of rooftop solar power. Apartment buildings, skyscrapers and industrial buildings all have flat roofs that can accommodate our solar power systems and the greater efficiency of dual thermal-photovoltaic energy generation systems will make it cost competitive with other generation systems.
The Vulvox collectors will not depend upon complicated advances in quantum or solid state physics. Our novel combination photovoltaic-solar thermal collectors will achieve the unprecedented efficiencies predicted here by means of relatively simple modifications to solar energy equipment; modifications that can be developed at a moderate cost.
The Vulvox solar system will generate higher power levels than competing parabolic troughs and solar power towers, while retaining all of the storage capabilities of solar thermal power.
Besides the inherent efficiency advantages of this collection system, we are sure we can add other modifications that will increase energy collection and electricity generation beyond those efficiencies. Modifications to increase the heat flow rate of the thermal collectors are an example.
Every time a photovoltaic panel system is upgraded and increases in power we can substitute it for a lower power panels used in previous "builds." and the higher power panels can be used in upgraded combination PV-solar thermal collectors with higher efficiency. Also, every time solar thermal systems are upgraded they can be combined with the latest practical photovoltaic collectors to keep the next generation combination systems cost competitive and to keep their efficiency higher than all other collection systems.
Contact us for more information.
It does seem like an excessive amount for 150 MW.
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