Green Wombat

photo: green wombat

Solar power company SunEdison today broke ground on a 8-megawatt photovoltaic power plant at Alamosa in south central Colorado. The Maryland-based company will sell the electricity produced by the plant to to utility Xcel Energy (XEL). Colorado law requires the state’s utilities to get 10 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Xcel Energy execs have pledged to generate 20 percent of the  utility’s electricity from green power by 2020. There seems to be a boomlet in utility-scale PV solar power plants: Also today, PowerLight (SPWR) was to put the shovel to the ground on a 15-megawatt solar panel power plant at Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base. Berkeley-based PowerLight is building the plant, which will be financed and owned by by San Francisco’s MMA Renewable Ventures (MMA). Like PowerLight, SunEdison has been best known as a designer and installer of commercial rooftop solar arrays. But as utilities turn to solar power plants to meet their green energy obligations, the companies are expanding into the utility-scale solar business. Unlike solar thermal plants – which use the sun to heat synthetic oil, hydrogen or other substances that then create steam to drive electricity-generating turbines – PV power stations convert sunlight directly into electricity like home rooftop arrays do. PV power is more expensive and the plants tend to be smaller scale than solar thermal stations. But such plants are increasingly fulfilling a niche – particularly in rural areas like Alamosa. PowerLight, for instance, last month opened an 11-megawatt PV power station in Portugal (photo above) and is building three more in Spain.  When it comes to renewable energy, Colorado’s blue-state governor and Nevada’s red-state governor want to be green. Both leaders attended today’s solar power plant groundbreaking ceremonies in their respective states.