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Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009 | 1:18 p.m.
Sun Coverage
Boulder City is soon to be home to yet another large solar plant, thanks to Sempra Generation receiving final approval to sell solar energy generated in the Eldorado Valley to a California utility.
The company received approval from the California Public Utilities Commission today to sell energy to California's Pacific Gas and Electric. Sempra will begin construction next month on a 48-megawatt solar thin film power plant, an expansion of its existing 10-megawatt solar plant located near a Sempra natural gas plant along Highway 95.
The two solar plants combined will create the nation's most powerful solar photovoltaic array, outdoing Nellis Air Force Base's 14-megawatt photovoltaic array by dozens of megawatts.
The new Boulder City plant will take at least a year to build and will employ more than 200 construction workers and electricians during the building phase, said Sempra President Michael Allman.
"It will be a mix of job types," Allman said. "Some are for trained electricians but some of the work is basic construction work: installing posts in the ground and installing brackets to hold the panels. ... We expect to fill the vast majority of the jobs locally."
This will be the first solar project built since Sempra completed its 10-megawatt array last December. There are several other projects planned, but most would be on federal land which has a longer permitting process.
The solar energy corridor in Boulder City is owned by the city and is already zoned for solar energy development allowing for fast tracked permitting.
"The land was zoned and ready to go," Allman said. "We just entered into a lease and we're off and running. You can't compare that to BLM land that's similarly situated with the flat land and the transmission lines, the permitted process is much more complicated and a lot slower."
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Why doesn't Boulder City demand some of that electricity so they don't have raise electricity rates for city residents??
"We expect to fill the vast majority of the jobs locally."
I don't think that was the case last time - lots of labor from Central and South America.
Word is that Conti got the electrical. So this will be a union job with trained professionals and living wages. Hope I get the chance to work on this PV array!
SOME of those workers will be from a temp agency...and that agency hires mostly felons right out of prison. I would rather see those jobs go to Boulder City and Henderson families that despretely need the work right now.