Salt River Project Starts a 19 Megawatt Solar Plant in Queen Creek, AZ

Ah, a shrine for worshipping the Sun God!

Respect.

At least it's not in orbit...

SRP is finishing there third solar plant in Gila Bend make a total of 83 megwatts. It should be done by Jan of this year. Three more plants are scheduled by 2014 to increase bring it to over 200 megawatts. It good to see that they are making electric plants for AZ citizens all the local nuclear power goes to CA. Would be nice if it lowered our bills.

I doubt that's true since California utilities only own: Southern California Edison (15.8%), Southern California Public Power Authority (5.9%), and the Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power (5.7%).^[2]

APS and SRP own 46.6%.

Not sure who owns the nuclear plants but I do know AZ doesn't see much of it especially here on the west side. The contract is for CA. Just follow the power lines. The company I work for put the ground and flat work in for the plants and power lines.

I live in Mesa. I'd have to pack a lunch to go out to Palo Verde. I'll take your word about the power lines.

Trivia time: Palo Verde is the largest nuclear generating facility in the world, and is the only nuclear generating facility in the world NOT located beside a river.

In the night and during rainy days what is the alternate source of energy they have?.

Hydro, coal, nuclear and natural gas. No wind power, yet, that I know of.

Glad to see this. Good going, SRP. As for wind, would that "tower" on the far west side qualify? If it's still on the road to reality.

__________

"Time is the best teacher. The trouble is, it kills all its students."

Because all solar and wind projects impose a "swing" loading on the local grid, it would be interesting to investigate the additional operating cost on the other equipment for this 19MWe plant.

One of the significant costs faced by the utilities is the accelerated failures of existing plants as they are forced to cycle up and down to match the daily cycles of the new solar installation.

Nearly all existing plants were never designed for this daily cycling service....

All necessary costs must be included in order to allow a full evaluation of solar power.

Thank God that low prices on natural gas will allow for reliable, stable electrical generation sources for the future..... we should see fewer ( not more) of these solar power plants in the future

Natgas is OK, but there is still the hydrocarbon thing. Better than coal...still, the fracking it takes to get it has that downside. Every energy has it's plusses and minuses. A matter of weighing the two and deciding which has more positives in the long run. My vote: solar and wind has fewer minuses overall.

has anyone considered the cost effiency of solar energy vs the life span of solar panels? are the developing countries more concerned about global pollution or their own interests? should our government be more concerned with china's co.2 output or their nuclear capabilities? the only way i see alternative energy as viable is when the sh#t hits the fan.