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Two
Solar Power Plants Begin Operation in Colorado
January 17, 2008
Two new large-scale solar power plants began full
operation in Colorado in late December. In Alamosa, SunEdison
completed construction of an 8.2-megawatt (MW) solar photovoltaic
(PV) power plant that will supply power to the Colorado power grid
managed by Xcel Energy. The plant is the largest PV power plant in
the Intermountain West and the largest in the United States to
interconnect with an electric utility-managed portion of the power
grid.
(In mid-December, the largest PV installation in
the United States, rated at 14 MW, began operating at Nellis Air
Force Base in Nevada. Read the news story about this project on the
U.S. Department of Energy website.)
http://www.eere.energy.gov/news/archive.cfm/pubDate=%7Bd%20%272007%2D12%2D19%27%7D
The Alamosa PV plant sits on 80 acres near an Xcel
substation. It will generate about 17 million kilowatt-hours (kWh)
of electricity every year, enough for 1,500 homes.
The plant contains three different types of solar
technologies operating side-by-side: fixed-mount, single-axis
tracking, and dual-axis tracking arrays with solar concentrators.
Xcel Energy Vice President of Resource Planning Karen Hyde said,
"Performance monitoring will allow us to study the system's
performance and evaluate the relative benefits of each technology
over the system's expected 20-year lifespan."
SunEdison will operate the power plant for 20
years and sell the electric power to Xcel Energy. Xcel is using the
project to help comply with its solar requirement under Colorado’s
Renewable Energy Standard. SunEdison, which is headquartered in
Beltsville, Maryland, has become the largest builder of
utility-scale solar power plants in the United States. For details
about the project, see the SunEdison December 17 press release.
http://www.sunedison.com/images/press/121607-alamosa.pdf
In Lakewood, a 1-MW solar power plant located at
the Denver Federal Center (abutting Sixth Avenue) began full
operation on New Year’s Eve. The $6.9 million plant, also built by
SunEdison, is a fixed-axis power plant (20°) and will provide about
10% of the energy consumption at the federal center.
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