Solar energy park proposed
By Gargi Chakrabarty, Rocky Mountain News
December 19, 2006
source: Rocky Mountain News
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/energy/article/0,2777,DRMN_23914_5223106,00.html
A New York startup with local roots will announce plans today to build the world’s largest solar energy park in the San Luis Valley. The $2 billion park, christened SolarDunes by developer SkyFuel, would have a total capacity of 1,000 megawatts – enough electricity for more than 300,000 homes and businesses along the power-hungry Front Range.
SkyFuel estimates the project’s cost would include transmission or high-voltage power lines necessary to bring electricity from the valley in southern Colorado to metro Denver. The startup plans to use an advanced but untested solar thermal technology.
The project is scheduled to begin construction in 2010 with an intial 100-megawatt phase. Eventually the project would create more than 300 jobs in the valley, says Michael Wisdom, executive director of the San Luis Valley Development Resource Group. “The solar park will be one of those significant attractions to the state of Colorado itself,” he said.
SkyFuel CEO and President Arnold Leitner has local connections. He has a doctorate from the University of Colorado and was a senior consultant at Platts in Boulder before leaving to get an MBA from New York’s Columbia University.
Leitner said he is proposing a mega-project here because the San Luis Valley has plenty of sun and the world needs more clean energy. “Global warming is real, and we will not make inroads in solving the carbon emission issue with small, token solar projects,” Leitner said.
Plenty of questions exist about the project. Critics say the technology has not been tested, SkyFuel does not have a prototype that scientists can verify, and it does not have any existing project. The company plans to build the first prototype next year.
“NREL has not had a chance to assess the technology, so we don’t have an opinion on it,” said George Douglas, spokesman for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, a leader in solar thermal research. Solar thermal technology typically uses reflectors or mirrors to concentrate sunlight.
The energy is used to heat fluids, such as water, and the resulting steam turns turbines to generate electricity. The SkyFuel project would use molten salt instead of fluids and a different mechanical process. It’s not clear how SkyFuel would finance the project.
Leitner said several New York investment banks are interested in solar thermal technology, although he did not reveal them. He also said financing would depend on whether utilities would contract for the solar power or buy the entire project.
He has discussed the project with Kathy Worthington, Xcel Energy’s community service manager for southern Colorado. Xcel spokesman Tom Henley said the utility didn’t have any details about the project. “Any type of power that somebody wants to provide us would have to come through the Least Cost Resource Plan,” Henley said, referring to Xcel’s plan that every four years determines how the utility can secure power for its customers from various sources – such as wind or solar – at the least cost.
Electricity generated using solar thermal is priced from 13 cents to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour. That compares with 20 cents to 30 cents for solar photovoltaics and 4 cents to 6 cents for coal and natural gas.
Leitner said the price of solar thermal could become competitive with fossil fuel power in five years, assuming coal and natural gas will be required to pay $25 to $30 a ton in carbon costs under proposed federal pollution guidelines.
The San Luis Valley’s Wisdom said he understands the financial and technological risks associated with the project. “We have a lot of faith in the sun,” Wisdom said, adding he’d carefully review the proposal. “Everything else would have to prove itself.”
By the numbers
1,000 megawatts: The total capacity for SolarDunes, a proposed solar energy park
300,000 The number of homes and businesses Solar Dunes plans to service
300 plus: Jobs the project would create in the San Luis Valley