News about Solar, Wind and alternative green power technologies

President Barack Obama announced during the first weekend of July that New Financial schemes of almost $2 billion have been made available through the US recovery Act. Two large solar companies have been entrusted to make things happen.

In Obama’s weekly address, he announced that US Department of Energy would disburse $1.45 billion of controlled funds to Abengoa Solar as well as to provide additional funds to Abound Solar Manufacturing to pursue three colossal renewable energy projects.

The world’s largest solar power plant is going to be built at Arizona by Abengoa Solar. The facility is named Solana, and it will generate up to 250 MW of renewable energy. It is thus sufficient to deliver electricity to 70,000 households.

Obama says that it is excellent new, to see performing companies such as Abengoa, creating jobs in America ““After years of watching…” them building … “things and create jobs overseas”. It is estimated that 1,600 jobs will be created for the construction at Arizona. More importantly, up to 70 percent of the products and materials that are going to be used will be produced in the United States of America, itself.

This will spur the supply chain and create more employment as a result. Another critical point to be noted is that, Solana will be the first large-scale solar plant in the country having technology to store energy.

This large solar power plant will be able to conserve energy in “molten salt” for up to six hours. The benefit of such technology is that the facility will be able to supply electricity at night and even during cloudy days.

Together with Obama’s support for solar energy, Abound Solar is going to expand its manufacturing of advanced solar panels at two new plants. This will lead to the creation of 2,000 construction jobs and an approximate of 1,500 permanent jobs. The erection of the Colorado plant is currently underway while the Indian plant is being constructed in a previously empty Chrysler Factory. These two plants will be able to manufacture millions of high-quality solar panels per annum once they are fully functional.

Obama acknowledges that many citizens are facing unemployment due to the intense economic conditions. He claims that renewable projects will gradually supersede some of the jobs lost during the financial meltdown.

President Barack Obama said, “These are just two of the many clean energy investments in the Recovery Act”. He also said that many premises of old factories have been transformed into clean energy companies. The premises have been re-designed and are now used by renewable manufactures to build wind turbines and solar panels.

These projects are showing that America is racing towards a clean energy economy.

Source: Consumer Energy Report