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| Solar Energy Fact Sheets
Informative Fact Sheets
about Solar Energy
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Solar: Solar in the Electricity Industry
"Utilities will offer
renewable energy because they realize that it's the common-sense solution to
producing a service customers want to buy... The industry restructuring will
provide opportunities to grow the solar industry. Who better to understand the
potential of an investment in a solar company than an electric company?"
Scott Weiner, Vice President of Technology Ventures, GPU International Inc.
The $250 billion U.S. electric
power industry deregulation may bring changes that could have a significant
impact on the demand for solar energy in the U.S. and abroad and will provide
opportunities for growth both in the solar and in the utility industries.
The cost of extending an electric
power line from the electric grid averages from $20,000 to $80,000 per mile,
with even higher costs in urban areas. The use of Photovoltaics (solar
cells) is often more economical for utilities than adding fossil fuel sources
of power because the cost of photovoltaics is lower than the value it provides.
At current prices of less than $7,000, photovoltaics can produce more than
$10,000 a kilowatt in value. The Utility Photovoltaic Group
(UPVG), a collaboration of 75 utility companies and other parties interested
in utilizing solar photovoltaics (PV), estimates that by the end of 1993,
utilities owned about 1,850 stand-alone solar systems, for a total of almost
100 kW of installed electric power. The Solar Two, a solar-powered
electricity generating plant in California, is a 10-megawatt prototype plant
that is demonstrating that clean solar energy is a reliable and economical
way to produce large quantities of power. It began producing electricity in
early 1996 and is designed to operate commercially for 25-30 years. -
The world's largest solar power plant complex is operating in California
and generates over 350 megawatts of electricity using solar thermal parabolic
trough technology in nine facilities, the largest at 80 megawatts apiece.
The plant provides power to over 350,000 people.
Solar thermal plants have virtually
no emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides,
hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), or carbon monoxide (CO). Over a 20-year life,
a 100-megawatt solar plant would avoid emitting more than 3 million tons of
carbon dioxide and 140 tons of nitrogen oxides when compared with the cleanest
combined-cycle power plants available today.
| GREEN PRICING: Many utilities now offer customers an
option called "Green Pricing", where environmentally concerned
customers have the choice of purchasing clean energy from utilities
(such as solar-produced energy). Over 24 utility companies have assessed
the market for green-pricing programs. Some of the advantages utilities
have in offering green pricing programs include: they can claim a competitive
advantage; it can improve their image with customers; they can offer
products and services that customers want; it prevents environmental
pollution; and it allows utilities to use market, rather than government
solutions to achieve goals the public wants. In addition, a number of
states now permit "net metering", where a utility customer,
using renewable energy such as solar, can sell excess power back to
the utility. This means that any power produced by the homeowner that
is not used can be sold to the utility company. |
[Sources: How the West Can Win: A blueprint for a clean & affordable
energy future. (Land and Water Fund of the Rockies: Boulder, Colorado,1996).
Renewable Energy Policy Project: Issue Brief, University of Maryland at
College Park. October 1996, No.3.]
Graphs:
1.Graph: Top US markets for Grid-Connected
PV (1996.). Solar Industry Journal. Third quarter 1996. Vol. 7, Issue 3.
2. Graph: Solar Electric Generating
Systems Capacity in Megawatts
(Source: Power Plays, 1995 Edition)
| Year |
Project Name |
Capacity in Gross MW |
| 1984 |
SEGS I |
14.7 |
| 1985 |
SEG II |
30 |
| 1986 |
SEGS III |
30 |
1986
(two in this year) |
SEGS IV |
30 |
| 1987 |
SEGS V |
30 |
| 1988 |
SEGS VI |
30 |
1988
(two in this year) |
SEGS VII |
30 |
| 1989 |
SEGS VIII |
80 |
| 1990 |
SEGS IX |
80 |
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Total |
354.7 MW |
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