According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industry Association’s latest quarterly U.S. Solar Market Insight report, the U.S. installed 4 megawatts of concentrating solar in the second quarter of 2011.
The total quarterly installed capacity can be attributed to three concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) projects, 2 megawatts in Arizona, 1 megawatt in CA, and 1 megawatt in New Mexico.
It marks the largest quarter for CPV installations in U.S. history. However, this record is likely to be broken soon: the Cogentrix 30-megawatt Alamosa Solar CPV installation in Colorado closed a $90.6 million loan guarantee from the Department of Energy in September and is expected online by the end of the year.
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Though no concentrating solar-thermal power (CSP) projects came online in the second quarter, installed capacity is expected to increase significantly in the next few years. The U.S. currently has a CSP project pipeline of over 7 gigawatts, with 57 megawatts of concentrating solar expected online by the end of the year. Additionally, in September the Department of Energy finalized loan guarantees for multiple CSP projects; Ivanpah (370 megawatts) received $1.6 billion, Crescent Dunes (110 megawatts) received $737 million, and Abengoa Mojave Solar received $1.2 billion.
With over 5,500 megawatts of projects with signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) and nearly $4 billion in federal financing secured, significant capacity expansion in the concentrating solar industry can be expected in upcoming years.
For more details on CPV and CSP projects in the U.S., subscribe to GTM Research's Utility PV Market Tracker.
COMMENTARY: GTM's CPV Report cited three major CSP projects:
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Each of these three CSP projects is described below:
- Amonix announced their 5-megawatt Hatch project late September, although GTM covered it in August. The Hatch, New Mexico CPV project holds the title as the largest CPV system in North America. Amonix is the supplier of the CPV equipment and the plant is owned and operated by NextEra Energy Resources, the energy subsidiary of NextEra Energy (NYSE:NEE). The Hatch CPV project sits on 39 acres in the Hatch Industrial Park, seven miles west of the Village of Hatch. The 5-megawatt system uses 84 Amonix trackers. Each of the Amonix modules puts out about 60 kilowatts. Blattner Energy of Albuquerque, NM is the EPC and construction contractor for the solar project. The project employed approximately 60 people during the construction phase.
- SolFocus completed a 6-unit, 53-kilowatt CPV deployment to be owned by El Paso Electric.
- SunPower (NASDAQ: SPWRA, SPWRB) unveiled its low-concentration PV product. SunPower actually began as a concentrator company back in 1985. SunPower claims their C7 Tracker has up to a 20 percent lower levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) than competing technologies. SunPower did not clarify whether those competing technologies were other low concentration PV (LCPV) or fixed flat-plate solar panels or panels on trackers. The firm did maintain that the C7 tracker provides "the lowest levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for utility-scale solar power plants available today." SunPower said that "a 400-megawatt C7 Tracker power plant requires less than 70 megawatts of SunPower solar cells."
I like the Sunpower C7 Tracker setup. It claims that it can power a 100MW power plant with only 17MW of SunPower Maxeon cells. Interesting stuff.
Courtesy of an article dated November 1, 2011 appearing in GreenTechMedia and an article dated October 31, 2011 appearing in GreenTechSolar
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