SolarReserve Gets Approval for 150-MW CSP Plant in Maricopa County, AZ

Last week, SolarReserve announced that its newest undertaking, the Crossroads Solar Energy Project, had been unanimously green-lighted by the Board of Supervisors of Maricopa County, Arizona. Now that it’s officially received the Special Use Permit (SUP) required to move forward, SolarReserve is one critical step closer to realizing the construction and eventual operation of a solar thermal plant smack in the middle of some of the best real estate in the world for sunlight.

The project, which will be located on a plot of privately owned land just west of Gila Bend in Maricopa County (about 75 minutes southwest of Phoenix), will bring approximately 150 megawatts of capacity from concentrating solar power (CSP) technology and another 65 megawatts from solar PV panels. Energy storage for on-demand power delivery through non-daylight hours will be made possible through SolarReserve’s molten salt power tower technology.

“We’re using the leading technology in energy storage,” said SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith, whose company is currently building a 110-MW solar plant near Tonopah, Nevada that will also store power using molten salt.

Molten salts, which can be heated to extremely high temperatures and are capable of retaining that heat for extended periods of time, can be used to store thermal energy. This enables solar plants to churn out fresh electricity, even long after the sun has set.

“The Tonopah project will have 10 hours of energy storage utilizing our molten salt power tower technology,” Smith said. “When it goes into operation at the end of next year, it will be the largest and the first commercial-scale facility with a molten salt power tower in the world.” Smith added that once completed, the Crossroads Solar Energy Project in Arizona will utilize the same technology to offer similar after-sundown clean energy production.

Smith said he expects the Crossroads project to not only produce 500,000 MWh of electricity per year, but to also produce jobs in Maricopa County. During the building phase, which is likely to begin sometime in 2014, the project will create approximately 450 jobs during peak construction. The majority of those jobs will be filled by local talent.

“We expect that about 75 percent of the workforce will come from Arizona contractors and workers,” Smith said. Looking further down the line, Smith estimates that direct and indirect supply chain jobs created by the Crossroads project will number between 4,000 and 5,000.

The Crossroads Solar Energy Project has an estimated price tag of approximately $600 million to $700 million. Smith said the next step in the process is to secure a Power Purchase agreement, and that SolarReserve is in discussions with “a number of major Arizona players” to that end. “The project has the ability to get into the California markets as well,” Smith said, “so we’re having discussions with utilities in both Arizona and California.”

The project’s construction timeframe will mirror that of its Tonopah counterpart, and will take approximately 30 months from start to finish. Smith estimates that the majority of 2013 will be spent in an effort to secure a Power Purchase Agreement, with construction likely beginning in 2014 and full scale commercial operation taking place sometime in 2016.

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Bruce County approved the guidelines for wind developers

Bruce County Council adopted a protocol to facilitate discussions with wind energy developers. It sets guidelines for such things as setbacks of certain types of use, requirements for the protection of natural heritage areas down. If a wind turbine is a vacant lot located next to the set must back room for the construction of a House on that lot allow.

The Protocol contains for the same rules, passed by the Council in 2009 on renewable energy projects, which deal with passage of the Green Energy Act, removes the local planning authority of renewable energy projects.

Chris LaForest, the head of the planning for Bruce County, admits that the new commitment Protocol weight to bear not now that planning approvals are made by the province. But the Protocol is a basis to negotiate County if wind energy developers to ask County's comments.

Kincardine Mayor Larry Kraemer says respectful dialogue is the best way to address concerns associated with wind developments.

He said "If you're going to get involved, that the proponent should in good faith as best you can cooperation in accordance with your development policies or protocols, and you are working with you should,", meeting of the agriculture, tourism and Planning Committee on Thursday.

Kraemer noted that before the passage of the local green energy Act and county councils were in a much better position. Now you have on negotiations and good faith of the wind developers.

"As we we had that said planning authority, that you shall do these things and now we are saying, please do these things." When we say please then are these things that we would like to see in the development and we would like to work with you, and see what happens. But we can no longer say no. The County does not have the authority to say no. Green Energy Act has removed all of the planning authority, "Kraemer said."

In the meantime Councils decided Bruce County, not to be imposed upon a request of Arran Elderslie that has an approved third party or a freezing of the exhibition of any kind of building permits for the construction of a wind turbine to medical officer of health for the unit, health Bruce Gray completed a study, a study on the health effects of the industrial wind turbines.

"It is a very dangerous game to permits without proper legislative authority, be deprived", Kincardine said Mayor Larry Kraemer at a meeting of the agriculture, tourism and Planning Committee

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