Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) — PG&E Corp., the owner of
California’s largest utility, received approval from regulators
to buy power from a 150-megawatt solar-thermal project in the
state’s Mojave Desert, the first commercial-scale system in the
state to include energy-storage capabilities.
Closely held developer SolarReserve LLC will sell the
output from its Rice project in San Bernardino County to PG&E’s
Pacific Gas & Electric utility for 25 years beginning June 1,
2016, according to a filing with the California Public Utilities
Commission, which approved the contract at a meeting today in
San Francisco. Terms weren’t disclosed.
The project will use thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight
onto a central tower containing molten salt, which is funneled
through a steam generator to produce electricity. The salt
retains heat and can produce power at night, an advantage over
photovoltaic panels that cost less and only work when the sun is
shining, according to Commissioner Mike Florio.
“This is expensive, there’s no getting around it, but I
think this technology is something that’s worth investing in,”
Florio said at the meeting.
The molten salt system includes as much as 10 hours of
energy-storage capability. It will cost about $600 million and
construction may begin early next year, according to Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of Santa Monica, California-based
SolarReserve.
Rice will be “the first large scale solar project in
California with energy storage,” Smith said today by e-mail.
The power-purchase agreement will help PG&E meet a state law
requiring utilities to get 25 percent of their electricity from
renewable sources by the end of 2016 and 33 percent by 2020.
Different Approach
SolarReserve’s system differs from solar-thermal plants
planned by BrightSource Energy Inc. in California that also
feature molten-salt storage and use water as a heat-transfer
fluid.
The SolarReserve system “is hopefully a more efficient
technology,” Florio said. “I don’t think we want to put all of
our eggs in one basket in exploring these new and innovative
technologies.”
SolarReserve expects to begin operating this year its
similar 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes project near Tonopah,
Nevada, that will provide power for NV Energy Inc. and be “the
first commercial scale molten salt power tower in the world,”
Smith said.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Herndon in San Francisco at
aherndon2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net
