Another day, another new solar power plant. At least that’s the way it seems, given SunPower’s recent spate of deals to build multi-megawatt photovoltaic solar power stations. The latest came Friday when the Silicon Valley solar panel maker announced a contract to construct an 8-megawatt solar power plant in Spain. The agreement follows a November deal for three other solar power stations in Spain totaling 21 megawatts. That in turn was preceded by an October announcement of a contract for a 18-megawatt plant in — where else — Spain.
See a pattern here? SunPower (SPWR) now has solar power plants totaling more than 100 megawatts built or under contract in Spain. Plus it constructed an 11-megawatt solar power station in neighboring Portugal and a 10-megawatt plant in Germany. It’s sole PV power plant in the United States is a 15-megawatt station at Nellis Air Force Base outside Las Vegas.
It’s no accident that SunPower has set its sights on Spain and other European markets. Spain and Portugal, for instance, offer simple so-called feed-in-tariffs that pay solar power plant operators a premium rate — typically for 15 to 20 years — for producing renewable energy. That makes the economics of financing and building solar power plants relatively straightforward in contrast to the patchwork of short-term state and federal green energy incentives in the U.S. (Witness the current upheaval in the industry over the crucial solar investment tax credit that expires at the end of 2008, and which Congress neglected to extend in the recently enacted energy bill.)
No wonder Europe is attracting renewable energy financiers like GE Energy Financial Services (GE), which financed SunPower’s Portugal plant (pictured above). “We truly believe utility-scale solar will be an incredible opportunity,” Kevin Walsh, managing director of GE Energy Financial Services, told Green Wombat at the opening of the Portugal plant last March. (That’s not to say that companies like GE don’t see opportunity in the U.S. market. Just this morning, SunPower announced that GE Energy Financial Services will finance and own five 1-to-2.4-megawatt commercial solar arrays in California being installed by SunPower for Toyota (TM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Agilent, Lake County, and the Rancho California Water District.)
The built-in profit margin for solar in Spain and Portugal also makes photovoltaic power plants viable. PV plants are essentially residential rooftop solar arrays writ large that track the sun and convert sunlight that strikes silicon-based cells directly into electricity. But silicon is expensive and solar panels are relatively inefficient. So absent subsidies like feed-in tariffs, few PV power stations have been built in the U.S., which has focused on large-scale solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to heat water or other liquids to create steam that drives electricity-generating industrial turbines. The beauty — literally – of a PV plant is that it contains virtually no moving parts or bulky power blocks that contain turbines and other machinery. That means they can be built closer to urban areas and used to shoulder the load from overburdened utility substations.
Even solar panel installers are striking deals overseas. Silicon Valley-based solar installer Akeena (AKNS), for instance, developed a new solar panel system called Andalay that cuts the cost of installation for homes and businesses. The company contracted with China solar panel giant Suntech (STP) to manufacture Andalay, which will also sell the panel in Europe, Japan and Australia.
Green Wombat 
Photovoltaics is not ready for prime time until it can capture at least 50% or better of sun energy and convert into electricity. It is still in 20%. Not worth the investments or government gravy. We have more pressing issues than to generate meager extra juice for our lighting fixutres. This is grossly silly!! I support clean energy as long as it is CHEAP ENOUGH TO DO IT. We are better off making solar reflectors that bounce sunlight back to shady sides of buildings where sun never strike. It is cheap!!! It save more juice than photovoltaics can ever…I am already making crude solar reflectors for my home use and it rocks!! Cheap as penny to the dollar you would spend on photovoltaics….. Dont buy solar stocks, build your own solar reflector with aluminium foil and plywood sheets and put them on stands in your backyard and shine back on your moldy side of homes where sun never strikes. It rocks!!! Movie stars, are you listening???
Turn down your office or home thermostat to 65 degrees and build a simple aluminum foil solar reflector about 200 sq ft on plywood sheets or molded plastic sheet (slightly curved) and put them to reflect sunlight back to your shady side (northern) through your windows. It can heat up your home by 10-20 degrees. After sundown, set your thermostat up as usual. Same thing same effect for pennies on the dollar. Dont blow your money on silly photovoltaics. Photovoltaics is for space vehicles only where it is runnig around the clock as it orbits around earth. Down here, it is foolish hardy to spend wads of money on only 8 hours of sunlight a day on average or less. (remember fog, haze, etc) Solar reflectors is the way to go. I looked and looked for cheap mirrors on the Internet but couldnt so I use aluminum foil which is about 60-70% efficient which is very good anyway. You can buy 200 square foot roll of aluminum for $6 from no brand or $8 from Reynolds Metal. Alcoa recenlty sold Reynold metal foil plants to a private company because of high union wages and low profits. Aluminium foil is the future of solar industry. What are you looking at me for, fool!!
Any competent mirror manufacturers can make mirrors for cheap. Mirrors are ridicuously expensive in stores because they come in frames. We are not thinking about using mirrors to reflect sunlight back to northern sides of our homes and office buildings to warm up 360 degrees around buildings. We forget that sunlight can bounce back. We are too quick to suck up to photovoltaics which is to o expensive . We use mirrors to generate electricty, yes, but it is not necessary becauwe you can only use simple pure sunlight to bounce back where it couldnt itself. It is so simple that you engineers should feel like dumb asses!!
Solar reflectors is much easier to make than to tell dumb commuters to start carpooling and using diamond lanes…..Diamond lanes is still a failure….
Do you know that aluminium is used in mirrors or silver , too? So go figure!!
Photovoltaics are indeed the future and companies like this are way ahead of their time. What is stupid is everyone travelling around in gas hog where you may as well be burning dollar bills with a match every mile. You may have to have patience for the pay-back period so right now these make more sense for industries with large electricity needs but these, along with wind power companies are supurb plays right now with a huge upside potential as described for Spain in the article. Europe is much farther along in both of these areas but I am thrilled that U.S. entrapaneureal companies can still compete, and do it damn well.
So you guys don’t see this a step in the right direction? The article is talking about solar power plants that are relatively low cost ($2/Watt), have no moving parts and don’t cause any pollution. The maintenance costs and personnel requirements are next to nothing. I can’t see any reason to build any more large scale power plants that are anything but renewable energy. Europe and Asia are strongly support solar consumption, which will encourage technological and cost improvements. I think we are feeling the effects of a lingering American attitude that we have unlimited natural resources. I agree that there is room in the water and space heating and light market for direct solar, but we should still support clean production of electricity.
We had tax credits for renewable energy back in the Carter era, but the Reagan admin killed it.
The efficiency of PV has gone up down the price down with more R&D. If we had been building the Renewable economy over the past 27 years – think how much further along we would be now. Think how WE would be the leader in PV instead of the Germans. Think of all the jobs this would brought here. And think of how much we would be saving in energy.
I imagine we would now be close to 5% of our energy needs from renewables, perhaps even more.
And for those who complain about tax credits – we have huge subsidies for the oil and coal industries. Not to mention the 1-trillion dollar war in Iraq that has pushed gas prices up so high.
Please read: “The efficiency of PV has gone up AND the price down …” in next article.
(Sorry)
When I hear people say that photovoltaics is too expensive to be practical, it just makes me laugh. It is probably cheaper than fossil fuels already if you figure in the real costs of fossil fuels. Oil industry subsidies in the U.S. are tens of billions of dollars a year. We have 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers a few hundred thousand dead Iraqis, a few trillion dollars waging war in Iraq and untold health and environmental costs from the burning, production and transportation of oil. Add all that to the price of fossil fuel generated electricity. Oh did I mention the odds of survival of our species on this planet? We will know that mankind is starting to wake up from a deep sleep when preserving life on earth is seen as more important than a few percentage points in profits.
Solar voltaics pay for themselves in way less than their useful life. Don’t tell me Iraq war was about Al Qaeda, they weren’t in Iraq till we got there. Profits, contrary to what many conservative worshipers of capitalism believe are not the only important things in life. What a sick mind set we have. Lets save the planet as long as it doesn’t cost too much.
Good comments, all. Two companies, Evergreen Solar (ESLR) and Energy Conservation Devices (ENER) claim that they already have “next generation” solar ramping up commerical production. One uses silicon more effeciently, the other hardly at all. They are “thin film.”
Any thoughts on them? Long-term, 200-500 yrs depending on who you listen to, we will start running out of fossil fuels. In the meantime, it seems that fossil fuel will only get more expensive to find, produce, and transport — so eventually solar and other alternative energy sources will become cost competitive.
I found a mutual fund run by “true believers,” New Alternatives (NALFX). If you look at their holdings it gives a list of mostly profitable companies in the alternative power arena. Many of the companies are overseas and little covered by our media. I found it a good place to see cutting edge tech.