Two mammoth solar plants to generate 800 megawatts in California
By Darren Murph 
posted August 18th 2008 10:10AM
posted August 18th 2008 10:10AM
It's one thing to see competition unnecessarily push more and more megapixels into palm-sized cameras, but this game of leapfrog is one we can actually get behind. A pair of giant solar plants will soon be installed in San Luis Obispo County in California, covering 12.5 square miles and promising to generate around 800 megawatts of power. OptiSolar will be responsible for laying enough panels to generate 550 megawatts, while SunPower -- the same company associated with the 14 megawatt installation at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada (pictured) -- will provide the other 250. The energy will eventually be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric, though any sort of pricing arrangements are strictly under wraps for now. C'mon Nevada, you gonna let the Golden State do you like that?[Via Slashdot]
YAY more open land will be covered in solar panels to kiss up to the tree huggers, those panels will destroy how much wildlife, especially since we have better options than solar?
12.5 square miles for 800MW? That's only 2.3W per square foot. Let's compare to the San Onofre Nuclear Plant in CA. Roughly 1 square mile and about 2000MW. That's 71.7W per square foot. Not to mention San Onofre works at night. Those solar panels had better have a serious operating cost benefit to make them remotely worthwhile. At least we're trying, but it seems to me there may be more efficient means to generate energy.
I don't know where you get your facts from but assuming you are fairly accurate people should be outraged at the thought of all this money going into something that has proven useless, and so time-money-space wasting.
These companies that donate are likely huge places like your Walmarts, Proctor, ect. They are donating all this money so that they can say they are part of this "Green Revolution" and look at how much money we have donated it. They could care less if it works. It's a great way to make an "image" of how much they care about the environment. That is the only thing keeping these mammoth space wasters afloat. As soon as we can convince people that this is a good idea but a fruitless effort (possibly harmful to ecosystems), we will continue to see this happen.
Very disappointing.
One of these days people are going to realize the dessert is an ecosystem too.
Hey, it's us or the animals, and I'm pretty sure the animals wouldn't go out of their way to save our lazy asses.
But you have to realize the trade off here, the animals loose their homes and possibly die so us humans can watch more tv, or spend more time on the computer...
Are these going to be the 40.9% efficient Solar Panels? I have my doubts...
Two mammoth solar plants to generate 0 megawatts in California, at night time.
Im more for the "Solar on your roof splits water into H and O2 at room temperature and uses that to store and generate electricity from a fuel cell on demand"-thingy.
Why try to fix problems of the future with tech from the past?
so you're saying that unless hydrogen is used to store the energy, the method of power generation here is useless?
leave the engineering to the engineers.
Both photovoltaic cells and fuel cells were discovered and first built in the 1800s, so they're both old technologies, so by your logic we might was well just throw them both out.
I bet you have a lot of space that you overlook. Like for instance rooftops.
The California Solar Site is within sight of the upthrust of the active San Andreas Fault...Shock & Awe. A number of years ago there was a large pilot array of solar cells in the same area. One of the problems was keeping the solar cell surfaces clean. The generating efficiency drops off rapidly with the accumulation of dust and dirt. In the chosen area, ion free water is not readily available for housekeeping. This is a problem with most desert areas.
As a Californian, having said all that, I still think it is worth a try. At least there is plenty of sunshine there. In the UK, not so much.
Nice, but the $/kWh has to be low. $0.35/kWh won't cut it.
The eyesore comments are pretty silly, or must come from people who have never driven I-5 near Coalinga, CA. California has space like Tokyo has apartments.
Holy cow! I actually live in San Luis Obispo! Go to Cal Poly. I bet this will probably constructed up in Atascadero which is about 15 miles north of SLO. Atascadero is the perfect place to build this, as it is flat, sunny about 95% of the year, and has relatively low population density. I hope some of us students could help out!
Its going in Creston, theres nothing out there, and it gets damn hot too. To the people saying they need to invest in nuclear power, there is already a plant fairly close to where this will be going in
It's amount of sun vs. cost of solar panels. Currently those panels are very expensive and not very efficient (20% efficiency if I'm not mistaken). Companies that create solar plans, do this for money mostly. So it doesn't make sense for them to make large installation in the northern parts of the country that get less sunny days, but more rain and fog... As solar panels become cheaper and more efficient, I'm sure those places will become an acceptable places for these installations.
Housing is another issue. As someone mentioned deserts are great place to put solar panels, as it's very unlikely someone will be building houses there.
I would love to have a small solar array on my roof just to power my computer and add some free lighting but GOD DAMN these things cost way to much! Even the used ones go for big bucks.
Solar is not so efficient on earth, but in space it is incredibly so!
The best way to use solar is capture it from space, then beam it down to the planet (microwave).
The collector satellite would not even have to be huge.
It would be efficient. It would be safe.
It would just cost a lot to set up. But no more than what money is spent on nuclear plants, mega solar installations and sea-based oil drilling rigs and pipelines.
Ecosystems...eyesore...what is wrong w/ you people? I actually LOVE seeing any form of energy-producer that is using a renewable resource that doesn't cause pollution in one form or another! I would be happy to see wind farms and solar fields all around me EVERY DAY! I live in Las Vegas, and every time I drive through our desolate desert when it's 110 degrees out I get pissed that there is NO solar energy being capitilized on (not in an economic sense, you entrepreneurs). Yes, there's a lot of spots here in NV that wouldn't be a good idea b/c of the strong winds and remoteness, but I'm sure we could allocate a few hundred square miles that would be! And yes, there's an ecosystem everywhere, but I don't think we'd be killing off any species of kangaroo rats or snakes by doing this. If you want to go all-out you could relocate the turtles and other creatures that are in that immediate area if they are endangered. The main question is how much of an environmental impact each energy-producer is to produce and maintain (solar, wind, nuclear, etc), and the long-term environmental impact of said energy-producer ($-in/$-out; hazardous materials in/out (when disposed of); etc). Just like a Prius is more environmentally harmful than a Land Rover over its course of life we need to be aware and conscious of the means and resources it takes for these renewable-resources energy-producers. My statements in the beginning were under the assumption that Wind and Solar is much more environmentally friendly than any other form of energy.
who's paying for this? And if it is California, y isn't it going in death valley. I mean its practically useless land that gets plenty of sunlight
"A megawatt is enough power to run a large Wal-Mart store." Not sure why they felt the need to include that factoid in the article.
This is FANTASTIC – we need so little room really to harvest solar energy – just the confidence to back this new (well actually very old – older than Mammoths!) energy source.. We can all help to make wise climate change resource decisions – rlike this one -- read the emergency triage response to current climate change crises at
ActonClimate