Las Vegas Sun NewsFirst phase of Boulder City solar power plant finished
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11 December 2012
11:58 a.m.
A San Diego developer has finished construction of the first phase of a solar power plant in Boulder City.
The 92-megawatt phase consists of nearly 1.5 million solar panels that can power about 27,600 homes, Sempra U.S. Gas & Power said Tuesday. The 58-megawatt second phase of its “Copper Mountain Solar 2” project is expected to be completed in 2015.
Construction began last December.
The power generated there will be sold under a 25-year contract to Pacific Gas and Electric Co., a San Francisco-based utility that serves about 15 million people in Northern and Central California.
The facility is part of Sempra’s broader Copper Mountain Solar complex, one of the largest photovoltaic solar plants in the country.
The first phase, Copper Mountain Solar 1, opened in December 2010. The power generated there is sold to PG&E under a 20-year contract and can serve the equivalent of about 17,000 homes.
The second phase, Copper Mountain Solar 2, is expected to serve 45,000 homes. The third phase, Copper Mountain Solar 3, is slated to be finished in 2015 and generate enough power for 75,000 homes.
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa last week finalized a deal to buy power from Copper Mountain Solar 3 for L.A. households. The same day, he signed off on a deal to buy power from the Moapa Solar Energy Center, 30 miles northeast of Las Vegas.
The Moapa facility, from developer K Road Power, is expected to be completed in summer 2015.
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and the cost per kilowatt is how many times more than traditional power sources?
Greg San,
First, if you are a Nevada resident it does not matter, all this power is going to California.
Second, how much more does it cost to buy, fuel, insure and maintain your car compared to the Horse and Buggy you used to own? ;-)
What ever the cost is someone has done their home work and they are buying the power.... Purchasing now is cheaper than the future.
These one liners like how much more did it cost other than the traditional... Or what's the pay back period etc.etc.. Are designed for one thing to stop you from becoming independent.
Greg San has a legitiment question..trying to shut him down with pithy sayings does not answer the question. So we take up Nevada real estate to service California? Today's solar power is like a square wheel, the cost to benefit is excessive. And who is paying for this? Are the 17,000 homeowners charged extra for the privledge of using solar power or is it another redistribution schem/scam.
Does anybody remember how expensive calculators, computers, cellphones, hybrid cars........ were? And how they would never catch on because they were too expensive? Who here doesn't have a cell phone or computer? Even at this time in it's technological growth period, these arrays still pencil out as a viable business. Many of these arrays have a twelve year payoff period. It does seem like a long time, but after twelve years it's like you have a machine that prints money. Breakthroughs are coming along every year. Can you imagine where we'll be in ten years? Hybrid cars needed a tax break to get started. Now almost ALL manufacturers build one and there is no more tax credit. Money well spent.
With oil heading to 50 dollars a barrel, and government loan guarantees and government subsidees also running out, it will be interesting to see what happens with these plants. Some of these plants got their land on back loaded lease agreements, when , they said, they would be up and running and making money Frankly i see big red flags coming, especially on the Boulder City plants