NEWS

SOLAR POWER: Report touts potential of large-scale projects

05/09/2008

Ben Geman, Greenwire senior reporter

An advocacy group issued a report yesterday touting the potential of large-scale solar power plants to supply significant baseload electric power without greenhouse gas emissions and urging policymakers to craft renewable power standards and extend tax incentives to help spur development.

The Environment America report extols the potential of concentrating solar power plants (CSP), which employ large arrays of mirrors or lenses that focus sunlight to produce heat that powers electric generators.

"If we are going to get serious about fighting global warming and addressing our nation’s energy woes, solar energy must be part of the solution," said Anna Aurilio, director of the group’s Washington office.

CSP technology, which is less known than photovoltaics, is not new, but it is experiencing a U.S. resurgence after a period of dormancy (Greenwire, Sept. 21, 2007). Acciona’s 64 megawatt Nevada Solar One project, the first CSP plant built in 17 years in the United States, came online last year, and substantially larger plants are being planned. The Solar Energy Industries Association estimates that more than 4,000 megawatts of CSP is in various stages of planning and development.

Environment America estimates that building 80 gigawatts, enough to power about 25 million homes, of CSP capacity is achievable by 2030 if there is "sufficient public policy support." This alone would be enough to curb carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants by 6.6 percent compared to 2000 levels, the report states.

"Solar thermal power can make even greater contributions in the years to come—precisely the time when the nation must achieve deep cuts in global warming pollution," the report says. Solar power plants covering a 100-by-100 square mile area, about 9 percent of the size of Nevada, could create enough power for the entire nation, the report states.

The report says CSP can be an important way to help bring about deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions needed to help stave off the worst effects of global warming. But the group is calling for stronger public support to help address cost and other barriers. This includes a national renewable electricity standard of 25 percent by 2025, with a specific amount allotted to solar generation.

Environment America, along with environmental groups and the renewables industry, is pressing Congress to extend federal renewable energy tax credits that are currently set to expire at the end of this year.

The report also supports adoption of European-style "feed-in" tariffs, building more transmission access to areas with high renewable resources, and a multibillion-dollar federal fund—that would use money drawn from subsidies for fossil- and nuclear-energy developers—for renewable energy development and deployment. The group also said a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions would spur development of low-carbon power sources.

Solar energy has been growing in recent years but still supplies a minuscule fraction of U.S. energy.

Click here to read the report.