Lets Get Going With Solar Power!

A demonstration facility by BrightSource Energy shows an installation

of mirrors called heliostats that track the direct rays of the sun

across the sky and focus the concentrated solar thermal from the sun

onto a central steam tower producing electricity.

The tower is shown left of center in the photo

Another great sign for the Earth's well-being! A huge installation solar panels will be constructed just outside of Los Angeles in a desert region. The project is being undertaken in a partnership between between Southern California Edison and BrightSource, a producer of solar power plants.

The amazing aspect of the new solar installation is that it will deliver over 1,300 megawatts, thats more electricity than even the largest nuclear power plant can deliver! It is estimated that the new solar power plant would be able to "provide enough electricity to power 845,000 homes — more than exist in San Francisco."

The heliostats use a series of reflective "troughs or mirrors to concentrate light onto a liquid to make steam." Once the steam is created a traditional steam generator that acts as an electric turbine is employed.

an artists rendition of a BrightSource Energy solar panel array

No price has yet to be determined for the funding of the project, and various federal and California regulator have yet to grant their approval.

Stuart Hemphill, Southern California Edison vice president of renewable energy and power stated: "We do see solar as the large untapped resource, particularly in Southern California,... It's barely tapped and we're eager to see it expand in our portfolio."

According to WIRED SCIENCE: Southern California Edison's Hemphill said that the new plants would provide a valuable hedge against volatile natural gas prices, noting that his company had seen natural gas prices as low as $4 per thousand million cubic feet (a standard industry measure) and as high as $16. Given the variability of natural gas pricing, Hemphill said that his company did not expect the solar thermal electricity to exceed the market cost of electricity in California.... The new design" includes: "Mirrors that track the sun — heliostats — sit in a massive field around a tower with a boiler. All those mirrors concentrate the sun's heat on the boiler, which makes steam and drives a turbine.... Solar thermal is seen as a promising source of energy for city-scale power because it works on very well established principles. Photovoltaics have come down in price — and thin-film plastic solar cells could get even cheaper — but the conversion of sunlight to electricity remains a novel source of energy. The first working cells were only built half a century ago, and they were truly something new in the world. Steam-driven turbines, on the other hand, make almost 90 percent of the world's electricity and their ancestry stretches back to the start of the Industrial Revolution. Solar thermal engineers, then, can use the knowledge gained from more than a century of tinkering at coal, natural gas, and nuclear fission plants."

Across the country on the east coast another approach to using solar power is being unveiled in a five-year plan by the largest utility in New Jersey, Public Service Electric and Gas, PSE&G. The PSE&G idea is to place solar panels atop some 200.000 utility poles owned and operated by PSE&G. plans also exist for the utility to install solar panels on top of "schools and municipal buildings, low-income housing and areas like closed garbage dumps." With a price tag of $773 million the utility expects to "generate 120 megawatts of electricity, one-third of which should come from the panels on utility poles. That amounts to barely 1 percent of the power consumed in the state, but is about 7 percent of the state’s goal of power generated from renewable energy sources by 2020."

Chief executive, Ralph Izzo, of Public Service Enterprise Group,PSE&Gs parent company recently said the project was prompted when “We saw how the financial crunch has really brought renewables to a grinding halt, and this is a way to get it back going and a way to make sure all our customers benefit.”

The New York Times explains that: "....solar power is the most prominent renewable energy source in New Jersey, which ranks second behind California in producing solar energy. As a result, the number of companies that install solar energy equipment has blossomed. By starting such a large-scale project, the utility is providing much-needed stimulus to the state’s economy."

A partner at the solar energy development company Resource Energy Systems and the former commissioner of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection and Energy, Scott A. Weiner, explained: “P.S.E. & G. is taking solar to another level,... They are stepping up to facilitate the solar market in New Jersey and to contribute to achieve public policy objectives.”

A major problem with the solar panels mounted on top of utility poles is that they are unable, like the BrightSource system, to track along the sun's path, thus cutting down on the peak productive time allotted for the solar panels to receive the direct rays of the sun.

Upendra J. Chivukula, chairman of the Telecommunications and Utilities Committee in the New Jersey State Assembly discuses that: “This type of investment is long term, so you’re not going to see the benefits right away,... But if you don’t do it now, you’re never going to become energy independent.”

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