The US Government’s Department Of The Interior is concentrating efforts to develop renewable power programs built on public land regulated by the Bureau of Land Management. One particular plan has them focusing on the use of enormous tracts of arid desert land to construct utility scale solar power plants. Just the sound of the name lends itself to its definition of huge power facilities or solar energy farms where the power is produced and provided to many people. For the most part, power utility companies have kept a low profile until now.
Two varieties of solar power exist today able to supply large requirements: Solar thermal and photovoltaic cell technologies.
Basically speaking, solar thermal energy is generated when the sun heats fluids that produce steam and the steam is then utilized to power a generator or turbine. Utility scale enterprises use mirrors or lenses that focus the sun’s rays in a concentrated manner like a kid with a magnifying glass.
With photovoltaic solar cell technology [PV], the sun radiates on to the solar panel or the solar film where it converts into an electrical current. This PV apparatus is a semi conductor cell. Photovoltaic is defined as converting or producing electric current or charge after exposure to a light source or radiated energy.
Smaller kinds of solar photovoltaic devices have been around for some time now such as calculators, flashlights, garden lights etc. Mid size utilization would be powering a home a couple rooms within a home or a garage. Large utilization of Photovoltaic usage would be enormous utility scale solar power arrays installed in large areas with unremitting sunlight directed at the facility.
The use of large scale solar power plants is still novel and in development stages. Technology is progressing rapidly as is the overall interest in solar as a source of renewable power. The government however, has been slow to adapt to utility scale solar power. It is still treading in new turf when commencing discussions regarding Utility scale solar power plants. California is beginning to move into utility solar to a larger degree. Pacific Gas and Electric [PG&E] is working on a development alongside Topaz Solar Farms which they hope will begin generating power by next year and move into peak production by 2013.
It has been forecast that the PG&E solar project will add a further 1.1 million megawatts to the California grid with more projects projected at a utility scale for California and Nevada. They are also looking at utilizing solar thermal power also. Further solar power plans are under evaluation for Florida, Arizona and surprisingly New Jersey. US Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Salazar has discussed fast tracking some developments for this year of 2010 that would mean fourteen projects slated for US government property. In January of this year, the number of applications was one hundred twenty eight sent to the Bureau of Land Management for building large utility solar facilities.
One of the potential road blocks for rapid development of utility scale solar plants is a dearth of transmission capabilities. Most big utility solar facilities need to be built in remote locations where land is available and sunshine is abundant, and the remote desert locations fill this requirement. Secretary Salazar has since made an announcement that approximately five thousand miles of transmission cabling onto land corridors on managed land has been allotted. They are also managing the right of way access applications for other available lands.
Solar energy is free and a widely available source of power. Certain spots in the US have the ideal conditions to sustain utility scale solar power. The solar power plants run clean and are renewable energy sources as opposed to fossil fuel operations, which are finite petro based systems and come at a cost to the environment. What is required is a durable and long standing plan for creating new and reliable supplies of power including utility scale solar power.
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