Dark days for solar? Huge California project sold off

[marmar]

from Grist:



As we entered the last month of 2010, the prospects for generating thousands of megawatts of electricity from solar power plants in the California desert looked bright. State and federal regulators green-lighted nine massive green energy projects.

Now the rubber is hitting the road. The K Road, in the case of Tessera Solar's 663.5 megawatt Calico solar dish project. A week after utility Southern California Edison abruptly canceled a five-year-old contract to buy electricity from Calico, Tessera has sold the project to a little-known company called K Road Power.

The fire sale -- terms of the deal were not disclosed -- came as Tessera struggled to raise money to finance $4.6 billion in construction costs for Calico in the Mojave Desert and its 709-megawatt Imperial Valley solar power plant near the Mexican border.

Tessera's abandonment of one of the United States' biggest solar projects is a setback for efforts to meet California's mandate to obtain a third of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. It underscores the shakeout sure to come as developers with approved solar projects face the reality of securing billions of dollars to build them with technology untested on a commercial scale. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.grist.org/article/2010-12-30-huge-california-solar-project-sold

[tabatha]

1. I would prefer urban rooftop rather than that

massively wildlife destructive project.

[DCKit]

2. Agreed, but we've got to start somewhere.

It's not as if CA doesn't have enough incentives in place for homeowners.

By my calculations, with CA's grants and rebates, payback is < five years for solar. However, that's assuming you have the upfront $$$$$$ to install a system.

Additionally, I'm suspicious of a company with the moniker "K-road", it sounds too much like "K-street".

[WhiteTara]

4. renters need to be included. Many residents

don't own and so the incentives are nothing to them. But, there is a company that is creating removables so you can take it with you when you go to your new house. That needs to be incentivized.

[DCKit]

5. You won't get an argument from me. nt

[WhiteTara]

6. so now we need to work on the legislation

contact your congress critters.

[roody]

3. Yes, that is much more efficient.

[Kablooie]

8. I'd bet you will get neither. You will see all serious green energy projects eliminated before long.

[Kablooie]

7. That's the second huge solar project that has suddenly been killed in the last few weeks..

I think we are going to see a huge push back from the oil companies to destroy all green technology.
And they will succeed.

[Ready4Change]

9. Who is K Road Power?

Any info on the company that bought this project?

[Dover]

10. I'm not familiar with this particular cancelled project, but shouldn't we work on NON-centralized

power sources rather than large centrally concentrated utilities?

[tinrobot]

11. Screw big corporations and put panels on your roof.

You can have more than a third of your power from solar long before 2020. Just put solar panels on your roof/backyard/whatever.

Sure, it might not be a solution for those in apartments. But if more homeowners put them on their rooftops, then apartment dwellers would benefit from the excess power their neighbors sold back to the utilities.

[XemaSab]

12. This is a great idea!

Want to buy some panels for our roof? We'd be greatly appreciative.

[tinrobot]

13. Sure! Tell you what - you stop the war...

...and I'll spend that money on solar panels instead.

[tinrobot]

14. Here are some numbers

The average household uses 920 Kwh of electricity per month. A system that offsets 33% of 920Kwh will take about 2.1KW of solar, depending on latitude.

Solar panels can regularly be had for less than $2/watt, $2.25/watt with inverters/hardware. Plus, until 2016, you get 30% back from the feds, perhaps more from state/local sources.

($2.25 * 2100) = $4725 per house. After rebates : $4725 - 30% = $3308 per house for raw materials to supply 33% renewable power.

That's actually not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things.

(edit: math)

[NNadir]

15. Except that accepting rebates for this is an immoral bit of business.

Those rebates are a tax on the poor to benefit the rich.

I would have fewer objections to the toxic solar scam if the people who advocated it paid for it themselves.

I do object to subsidies for solar though.

Solar's slightly superior to natural gas at most latitudes, but it is not worthy of government subsidies in a time when schools, libraries, medical care for the poor and other far more worthy things are being defunded.

Poor people are NOT going to buy themselves swell solar systems for their houses, since mostly then don't own houses. Rich people are. Let the rich pay for themselves, OK?

[badtoworse]

16. I never liked the idea of using 1000's of acres for large solar projects

The cost of energy from this was plant would have been very high - at least double that of a gas fired combined cycle. I can't see utilities overpaying for energy to that extent and then passing the cost onto ratepayers. In addition, the technology (parabolic dishes) proposed for this project is untested on a commercial scale. I'm not surprised it failed.