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Solar plant not ready for commercial use, utilities say
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Photo by John Gurzinski.
Acciona Solar Power crews work on the Nevada Solar One solar power plant near Boulder City in May. The plant is not yet producing a reliable stream of power, Nevada's utilities said. » Buy this photo
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REVIEW-JOURNAL
Updated: Sep. 26, 2008 | 3:27 p.m.
Nevada Solar One, a giant solar thermal power plant at Boulder City that represents a revival of old technology, is producing electricity sporadically. But the solar plant is not ready to start commercial operation yet.
Acciona Solar Power, the Spanish-owned company developing the $250 million, 64-megawatt solar project, on June 7 announced that it had started generating electricity for Nevada Power Co. and Sierra Pacific Power Co.
The solar plant has been generating power in varying quantities periodically over the last week, but the solar plant is not yet commercially operational and is not producing a reliable stream of power, the utilities said.
"We have every expectation that they will get fully operational, commercial, next week," said Andrea Smith, a spokeswoman for the utilities, which are subsidiaries of Sierra Pacific Resources.
Acciona has been "fastidious" in complying with the contract, Smith said.
Acciona spokeswoman Molly Conklin said Thursday, "We have fulfilled all of our obligations, and Nevada Power is pleased at where we're at."
A few years ago, Solargenix Energy, as the company was then known, said it was unable to obtain financing for the solar thermal power plant because the utilities had junk bond ratings and are the sole buyers of the solar power generation. The plant developer later obtained financing, and Acciona has been building the project for the last 16 months.
Nevada Solar One was scheduled to start commercial power generation for the Nevada utilities on March 31, but missed that deadline.
Under the contract, Acciona may obtain deadline extensions. However, Acciona and the utilities declined to disclose about whether Acciona requested any deadline extension for commercial power production at Nevada Solar One.
Acciona could have obtained an extension until June 30 by providing additional collateral to the utilities. Acciona also could have requested another postponement for commercial operations until Sept. 30.
The missed deadlines are troubling for Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power. The Nevada utilities have failed to satisfy state law requirements for use solar power in each of the last four years -- mainly because of delays with the Nevada Solar One project. Nor does the Public Utilities Commission expect the utilities to comply with solar energy requirements for 2007.
Spokeswoman Conklin didn't respond to questions about why commercial operations were postponed this year, but the delay didn't surprise one industry insider, who requested anonymity.
"There is always the risk of schedule delays on any project. The more leading edge or bleeding edge, the more risk you have on scheduling. This plant is literally almost serial number one," the source said.
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