All About Solar | Green Energy News

September 24, 2006 – Vol.11 No. 26

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week’s news.

Xcel Energy, which serves 3.3 million electricity customers in eight US west and midwestern states, has announced that it will build the largest centralized solar photovoltaic power plant yet in the US: 8-megawatts.

Xcel has hired SunEdison of Baltimore, Maryland, to build, own and operate the project slated for construction at an unspecified site in south central Colorado. SunEdison is a solar electricity power plant builder/operator which offers solar-generated electricity at current or below market retail rates.

The project will have 6.8 megawatts of capacity utilizing conventional and state-of-the-art, flat panel solar photovoltaic arrays, but 1.2 megawatts will come from concentrating solar photovoltaic units. While Xcel isn’t detailed about the concentrating technology but it does describe the technology as concentrating sunlight into a beam of light 500 times greater than normal sunlight.

All of the power from the facility as well as its its Renewable Energy Credits (REC) will be sold to the Public Service Company of Colorado. The project is expected to be complete by the end of 2007.

Visit Xcel Energy at http://www.xcelenergy.com/ SunEdison at http://www.sunedison.com/

The tight supply of polysilicon has been a drag on the silicon solar photovoltaic industry. The only way to get around this is has been for solar product manufacturers to sign long term agreements for silicon or invest directly in silicon production. In other words, solar product manufacturers are tightening the links in their respective supply chains.

SunPower has already signed a supply agreement with DC Chemical of Korea for a supply of polysilicon. In the next logical step SunPower has invested in Korean company Woongjin Coway to convert that polysilicon into silicon ingots.

SunPower expects to buy $250 million in silicon ingots from the joint venture to which it will contribute $5 million. Manufacturing of the ingots will begin in 2007 and is expected to grow at a rate consistent with the supply of polysilicon from DC Chemical.

Visit SunPower at http://www.sunpowercorp.com/ .