Californian Governor Jerry Brown, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and the Mayor of Blythe Joseph DeConnick have taken part in a ground breaking ceremony at the site of two vast solar-thermal power plants in Blythe, California.
Each power plant is anticipated to be worth 242 megawatts (MW). Early construction work began on them at the end of 2010.
The two plants are part of a larger project to build four solar-thermal power plants at this location, with a combined capacity of 1,000 MW. The suitability of the Mojave Desert site was evident in the 113F (45C) temperature recorded on the day of the official ceremony.
The Solar Millennium Group is behind the scheme with Solar Trust of America being the American company unit within the group. German based Solar Millennium AG has additional solar-thermal projects around the world with a combined capacity of more than 2,000 MW.
The overall investment sum for the first two solar-thermal power plants in Blythe is approximately $2.8 billion. The Blythe project received the required loan guarantee for the project from U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu only a few weeks ago. The loan guarantees are required as 75 percent of the construction costs of the first two plants will be funded through borrowed funds.
Solar Millennium AGs Christoph Wolff remarked at the ceremony that the project represents a major development is solar power generation globally. "For the first time, we are utilizing solar energy with capabilities equaling those of nuclear power or major coal-fired power plants."
Southern California Edison will purchase the electricity produced in the Blythe one and two plants, thus meeting its state renewable energy quota requirements. The two power plants are expected to be connected to the grid by 2014.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.