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Two just-announced photovoltaic projects in California represent disparate parts of the solar-power installation spectrum. Down on the solar farm, Next Light Renewable Power has inked a deal of unknown dollar value with Pacific Gas & Electric to design and build a PV power plant in the Antelope Valley near Los Angeles, which will supply 230 MW (AC) of juice to the utility. Back at school, Real Goods Solar will develop and install 3.65 MW (DC) of solar carport systems spread across five campuses of the Fremont Union High School District in Silicon Valley.
Next Light (which is a "wholly owned portfolio company" of funder Energy Capital Partners) has been in development mode on what is called AV Solar Ranch One. The 2100-acre location proposed for the PV plantation--where once alfalfa, wheat, and onion grew--straddles California Highway 138, not far from the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve state park (see map).
In late March, my wife Cass and I took a day trip to see the desert wildflowers in bloom there, blissfully unaware that bright, windy day we had driven through the future site of what will be one of the biggest solar PV installations in the world. The accompanying photo (below center) I took during our visit to the reserve actually captures the AV Solar Ranch 1 location, deep in the distant background past the rolling hills and tucked in before the mountains on the horizon.
I reached Jim Woodruff, NextLight's VP of regulatory and governmental affairs, and asked him about the project. He said that they expect to "commence construction of the system in the second half of 2010" when the arrays are interconnected to a Southern California Edison substation in the area, which "will energize in 2011 and then we'll commence deliveries" to the grid that same year and be fully operational by 2013. Although the site resides in the SCE service area and connect to the grid there, the power--enough to supply about 90,000 homes--will be shipped to PG&E.
The company filed for a conditional use permit with Los Angeles County in March, which Woodruff expects to be issued by the end of the second-quarter 2010, which would represent "the green light we need before we commence any construction on site."
NextLight is in the process of selecting its EPC (engineering/procurement/construction) contracting partner, according to the executive, an ongoing process that should result in a decision within the third quarter of this year. As a result, no decision has been made on which vendors' PV modules will make the cut for the project, let alone the inverters or other balance-of-system components.
A cursory glance at the AV Solar Ranch One website might lead one to believe that SunPower modules mounted on single-axis trackers will be installed. But Woodruff assured me "not to read anything into that," since it was just an artist's rendering and the information there is meant to give a conceptual idea of how the arrays would look and what their capabilities would be, and that neither SunPower nor any other PV company's panels have been chosen to supply the project.
But he did say that NextLight might go with a vertically integrated company that offers both EPC services and the modules themselves under one roof (hello, SunPower and First Solar, do you read me?), or they might go with separate EPC provider and module supplier. "We've not excluded anything at this point," he insisted.
Woodruff described the site itself (the former Larson Ranch now owned by NextLight) as "gently sloping land, which hasn't been farmed in awhile. Topographically, it's a great site for PV...it doesn't have alot of features that require civil engineering," except for some drainage systems, operations and maintenance buildings, and the like. He expects nearly all of the acreage to be filled with solar panels.
When approved, AV Solar Ranch 1 would create hundreds of construction and operational jobs, which would be good news for a region reeling from downsizing in the aerospace industry and the troubled economic climate in general. Woodruff believes the Antelope Valley could become a "key area for solar," given its proximity to load centers (that would be the L.A./SoCal megalopolis), transmission lines, and such.
Although not nearly on the scale of the NextLight project, Real Goods Solar's deal with the Fremont Union school district represents--at 3.65 MW and revenue infusion north of $30 million--its biggest project yet. The company claims it is also the "largest direct purchase [of solar power] by a secondary school in North America," financed in part by monies from a school bond passed in June 2008.
Once activated, the series of solar carport arrays are expected to supply some 45% of the power needs of each school and will save taxpayers in the neighborhood of $12 million over the 25-year life of the systems.
The PV systems integrator/installer is one of the oldest in the Bay Area and the planet for that matter, claiming to have sold the first PV panels in North America back in 1978. With 4500 residential and commercial installations under its belt, including other carport systems (see accompanying photo), Real Goods still has never undertaken a project as large as the Fremont job.
Although a ceremonial ground-breaking will take place at Homestead High School on June 9, Real Goods' Doug Payne told me that he anticipates the first shovel in the ground doing actual work on June 15, with construction continuing "until the end of 2010." Homestead will be the first school receiving the solar carports, the company director of commercial biz dev told me, but eventually they will have "a phased construction schedule," with "two or three schools construction [going on] in parallel."
Real Goods has chosen SunPower 230-W panels and a range of Satcon inverters for the installations, according to Payne, with the installed wattage on the various sites ranging from about 350 to 900 KW (DC) and Homestead's arrays accounting for the largest share. Seeking to "maximize the opportunity on every campus," as he puts it, the solar carports will be built on student and faculty parking lots as well as on available space near some of the schools' athletic track-and-field areas.
Payne explained that a unique aspect of the project is that the school district "placed a premium on aesthetics and design" of the PV carports. "It's a challenge to make such structures pleasing [to the eye,]," he said, and thought that what they had engineered was a "nice blend of cost effectiveness and aesthetically pleasing" aspects. "We did the best we could."
