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Renewable Energy News

TUESDAY 21 APRIL, 2009 |

$1.4 Billion Solar Farm For Arizona

by Energy Matters

The Arizona Department of Commerce has announced a AUD $1.4 billion solar farm to be built near Kingman next year.

The solar power plant is expected to generate enough electricity for 50,000 homes once it commences operations in 2013.

According to the Department of Commerce, The Kingman plant will generated 2,000 construction jobs and 100 permanent jobs and will be situated on 1,400 acres of land. The area was selected as it was one of the few places with adequate power line transmission support.

Unlike solar panel based solar farms, the Kingman plant will utilise concentrated solar power (CSP) solar thermal technology where reflective mirrors called heliostats reflect and concentrate sunlight onto liquid-filled tubes used to generate steam and spin turbines.

One of the challenges of any solar farm project is energy storage to provide baseload power at night and during cloudy days. In the case of the Kingman plant, a massive salt battery will be used that can maintain 98% thermal efficiency up to several days.

The plant will be constructed by Albiasa Solar of Spain.

The plant is the second concentrated solar power facility to select Arizona. Abengoa Solar announced last year it is building a 280-megawatt solar-thermal plant 100 kilometres southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend. Operating at full capacity, the Solana plant will provide clean electricity for 70,000 Arizona homes.

The Solana Generating Station will cover 3 square miles and consisit of 2,700 parabolic trough collectors. Located on what is currently agricultural land, the power plant will use 75 percent less water than the current use of the property.

Arizona Public Service Co. will buy the energy from the Solana power plant once it is operational.