Utility aims to salt away solar power

The sun already shines year-round in Nevada.

Now, a California company says it has found a way to harness sunlight around the clock as well, and Nevadans soon could see the resulting solar energy powering their homes.

NV Energy was scheduled to announce today a 25-year agreement to buy power from the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, a plant that SolarReserve plans to build on federal land outside Tonopah, about 175 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Crescent Dunes will be the nation’s first commercial solar power plant using salt storage to distribute energy after the sun sets, and it will be the second-largest renewable-power source in NV Energy’s fuel portfolio. The power plant will yield enough juice to power 75,000 homes during peak electric use.

The agreement is NV Energy’s largest solar-power purchase agreement. To reach state mandates on renewable-energy use, the utility has cobbled together dozens of smaller solar-purchase contracts of 10 to 20 megawatts and other small-scale agreements involving geothermal hot spots, wind and other alternative fuels.

The company’s biggest renewable deal thus far involves the co-development of the 200-megawatt China Mountain wind project at the Idaho border.

Until now, the largest solar deal was a power-buying pact with the 64-megawatt Nevada Solar One plant in Boulder City. Nevada Solar One can serve 48,000 homes during peak consumption.

“(Crescent Dunes) is a large, commercial-scale project,” said Tom Fair, vice president of renewable energy for NV Energy. “We have quite a few projects in our portfolio that total far beyond (Crescent Dunes) in the aggregate, but to add a 100-megawatt chunk is significant. ... If it works as it should, I think it’s kind of a breakthrough for these sorts of technologies.”

Crescent Dunes will use mirrors to focus sunlight at the top of a tower. As molten salt flows through the tower, the salt absorbs the reflected sunlight. The plant then stores the salt in tanks until utilities need the sun power for customers. That means solar energy is available even after dark. Typical photovoltaic arrays capture and transmit solar power only when the sun shines.

Kevin Smith, chief executive officer of California-based SolarReserve, said the company chose the Tonopah site not just for its abundant sunshine but also because of its proximity to transmission networks for distribution.

Neither Fair nor Smith would disclose the rate NV Energy will pay for Crescent Dunes’ power, but Fair said the Public Utilities Commission of Nevada will vet prices for their competitiveness. NV Energy will include the SolarReserve project in its Integrated Resource Plan filing, scheduled for Feb. 1. Fair added that the deal locks in rates, so SolarReserve cannot change prices later if construction costs are more than expected or if the project runs into unexpected expenses.

The Washington Post reported in June that officials with the Air Force, which operates the 2.9 million-acre Nellis test-flight range near Crescent Dunes, said they would urge the Bureau of Land Management to reject the plan because its “sensitive” location 25 miles from the range’s border.

The Post said that SolarReserve spent more than 18 months negotiating with the Air Force to revise plans.

Smith said Monday that the Air Force has signed off on the project and sent a letter to the BLM approving Crescent Dunes’ location.

Smith said BLM approval has been fast-tracked, with construction of Crescent Dunes set to start by the end of 2010.

Construction should take about two years, and would create 450 construction jobs and up to 4,000 jobs for local suppliers. Crescent Dunes would generate sales and property tax revenue of more than $40 million over the 25-year deal’s period, SolarReserve officials said. It would employ a permanent staff of 45.

Electricity from Crescent Dunes would go into the power grid that serves Northern Nevada. But after NV Energy finishes its 235-mile One Nevada transmission network, possibly by mid-2012, then north and south grids will connect, and energy from Crescent Dunes will power homes in the Las Vegas Valley.

The technology proposed at Crescent Dunes comes from technology that aerospace company Rocketdyne developed in the 1990s. The U.S. Department of Energy conducted a three-year operating test with a 10-megawatt experimental plant using salt storage near Barstow, Calif., in the late 1990s, but the technology wasn’t yet commercially viable.

In 2008, NV Energy issued a request for alternative-energy proposals that would help it meet state-mandated renewable-energy standards, which call for the utility to get 25 percent of its power from green sources by 2025.

About the same time NV Energy submitted the request, Rocketdyne parent United Technologies Corp. helped get SolarReserve off the ground to use the molten-salt technology. SolarReserve submitted a proposal that, thanks to the storage aspect, stood out from the dozens of bids NV Energy received.

SolarReserve has raised $140 million in venture capital from several private-equity firms. The company did not disclose how much Crescent Dunes will cost to build.

SolarReserve is scouting other Nevada sites for molten-salt plants, and executives are eyeing locations in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado.

Contact reporter Jennifer Robison at jrobison@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512.

Trending topics:

• NV Energy
• solar energy
• salt
• Crescent Dunes
• power
• energy
• SolarReserve
• Tonopah

Comments

Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.

1. GH Dec. 22, 2009 | 7:07 p.m. Report Abuse

   Wouldn't it be easier, greener, and more cost affective to just put solar on our existing rooftops rather than building big plants in the desert, the infrastructure to move the power, and the maintenance involved?
   
   I know it would take tens of thousands of houses to reach 100mw but we have the roofs so why not use them.

2. DMCVegas Dec. 22, 2009 | 3:49 p.m. Report Abuse

   You know something, seeing more houses get build and tearing up the land is far more of an eyesore than some solar plant out where none of us can see it. And as houses continue to get built, and the demand for energy goes up, we have to continue to build power plants.
   
   Unless some of you are going to sacrifice personally your air conditioning, your electronic gadgets, and your appliances from refridgerators to the very computers you're typing your opinions on right now, the demand is going for power is going to increase, and we will need to build more power plants.
   
   The next time you complain about some power plant, some solar farm, or some oil derrick drilling down into the earth, and you're upset about how it looks, or how you *feel* it's damaging the environment, look in the mirror and realize you're consumption of energy is what necessitated it's construction.

3. PaulRWood Dec. 22, 2009 | 2:17 p.m. Report Abuse

   @Common Sense: You should 'disclose' how you found out that solar energy typically costs 30 cents/kWh. While solar is more expensive than fossil fuels, no one would even consider any power plant that costly to operate. Look up "Levelized Energy Cost" (LEC) for solar and you will find that it can cost between 10 and 20 cents/kWh depending on technology. As soon as @Bill burns up all of our 'stored' FOSSIL FUELS, that cost will be quite small!

4. MIKE VEGAS Dec. 22, 2009 | 11:13 a.m. Report Abuse

   THE PUBLIC UTILITIES COMMISSION NEEDS TO BE DIVIDED INTO THE UTILITIES COMMISSON WHICH THEY ARE NOW AND THE FOR THE PUBLIC COMMISSION WHICH COULD REPRESENT THE PUBLIC. THE DOG AND PONY SHOW WE SEE NOW DOES NOT GIVE THE PUBLIC A FAIR CHANCE TO BE REPRESENTED.
   
   25 YEAR CONTRACT, WHAT FORSIGHT, OF COURSE THEY'VE BEEN WRONG ABOUT EVERYTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE GOOD FOR NEVADA. REMEMBER, IF IT'S GOOD FOR NEVADA ENERGY, IT MUST BE GOOD FOR NEVADANS. CHOKE ON THAT.
   
   TIME FOR ANOTHER POWER COMPANY IN NEVADA

5. Oscar.Jones Dec. 22, 2009 | 9:54 a.m. Report Abuse

   Who pays for the technology and the expansion of the electrical transmission infrastructure? We will, with higher rates. Vegas could easily support wind generators on the North end of the valley where it is windy almost every day. But NV Energy will not implement anything that will actually lower consumer rates. They just won't. It's all about the quarterly profit margin to the stockholders. Not about saving the consumer any money. It's all a big technological scam, by money hungry CEO's. This NEW technology is over 20 years old, and has already been used in other countries for decades. Why is it India and China and Japan ALWAYS have the money saving technology implemented years before the United States? Because they actually want to lower costs to the consumer, and reserve resources. Here, it's all about profit. It's just another corporate scam to the consumers. Monopolies suck.

6. Frank.Pelteson Dec. 22, 2009 | 9:13 a.m. Report Abuse

   "Good Idea" said:
   
   "Then they can take the garbage that also spews out of Reid's mouth, compost that and use the methane to power generating plants."
   
   Actually Reid exhales Carbon Dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
   
   Will Reid pay Carbon Credits to the North American Union for that?
   
   Also, do the math: A municipal power plant for a city typically generates power ranging from 200 Megawatts to 2,500 megawatts. By comparison, solar power is in the range of 10 to 20 megawatts. In other words, after all of the sophisticated solar power systems are built, solar power plants will generate only "flea power."
   
   Much ado over nothing. In other words, GOVERNMENT BOONDOGGLE.
   
   Eventually solar power stations will become inactive and remain starkly standing ruins dotting the landscape as a testimonial to the futile dis-economy they created at the hands of politicians.