PG&E Signs the Largest Solar Contract in the World

Photo Credit: Inhabitat

PG&E recently signed a contract with Oakland-based BrightSource Energy for 1,310 MW, making this solar electricity deal the largest of its kind in the world.  Once the contracts are fulfilled and the system is up and running, it will generate approximately enough electricity to power 530,000 homes per year!

This is great news for PG&E since they have now exceeded California’s requirement that investor-owned energy utilities generate 20% of energy harvest from renewables by 2010.  It’s also just plain good news for California. The downside is that the installations will require a chunk of the Mojave desert about the size of Rhode Island to accommodate that amount of capacity. (As a side note:  One blog site I came across argued that for solar to be successful, it’s curators must be as shrewd in attaining the landmass necessary for the installations as they are at reducing the dollar to watt ratio.)

The first of the contract’s seven installations will hopefully be online in 2012, a year behind schedule due to slow regulatory processes.  The first plant is being constructed in Ivanpah, California and is supposed to operate at a capacity of 110 MW.  Once all seven projects are completed, PG&E’s solar farms will generate approximately 3,666 gigawatt-hours of power per year.

BrightSource’s solar thermal plants operate by using a field of mirrors to focus the sunlight onto a central tower, which then generates steam.  The steam pushes a turbine, much like traditional power plants, and then that energy is harvested for use in the grid.  It’s pretty interesting – I suggest checking out the company’s video on how it all works.

And that’s not all that PG&E is doing for renewable energy. According to this recent press release, “PG&E has entered into new contracts to buy more than 830 MW of renewable generation from solar developers, enough to meet the needs of more than 200,000 average homes. In addition, to enable the utility to reliably increase its use of renewable energy, PG&E yesterday asked the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to approve new agreements for power from highly efficient and flexible natural gas-fired plants that can balance the fluctuating output of wind and solar resources.”

Natural gas may not be the ideal clean energy, but it seems PG&E is creatively seeking out ways to bridge the gap between traditionally stable and renewable energy.  Add in the contracts with BrightSource and the 15 million people PG&E serves are bound to have a well-lit future.

Posted on October 19th in Solar News by Craig.