Gibbons dedicates solar plant near Boulder City

Thursday, Jan. 22, 2009 | 5:04 p.m.

Heather Cory

Gov. Jim Gibbons speaks at the dedication ceremony of Sempra Energy’s new El Dorado Energy Solar facility Thursday. The 10-magawatt project is located adjacent to the company’s existing natural gas power plant near Boulder City.

El Dorado Solar plant

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The Eldorado Valley’s second solar plant is providing electricity to California, and while Boulder City doesn’t receive any of the plant’s sun-generated power, it is helping make Southern Nevada a hub for creating clean, renewable energy.

This morning, Mayor Roger Tobler ceremoniously flipped the “on” switch during El Dorado Energy Solar’s dedication ceremony.

Amid nearly 1,700 black glass panels spanning 80 desert acres, Gov. Jim Gibbons called Southern Nevada the solar capital of the region.

Today’s groundwork will establish Nevada as an “energy-exporting state well into the future,” he said.

In February, Tobler helped dedicate Acciona Energy’s 64-megawatt Nevada Solar One, the Boulder City Energy Zone’s first renewable power plant. Most of that power also goes to California.

For Boulder City now, what’s more important than running its homes and businesses with electricity from the sun is renting its land to operators and becoming a home to the newest technologies in power generation, Tobler said.

The city receives about $1.2 million a year from both plants for land leases and gets the satisfaction of encouraging renewable energy production, he said. More money will come later, if the plants exercise options, he said.

The El Dorado Energy Solar 10-megawatt thin film photovoltaic plant opened in December after almost six months of construction. It can supply power for 6,400 homes in central and northern California at its peak, said Mike Allman, president and CEO of the plant’s parent, Sempra Generation.

Gibbons said Nevada has improved the permitting process for solar plants and is planning to put together a new electrical grid system.

“We’ve been advancing the process to enable companies to come and establish, manufacture and generate energy into the market,” he said.

During the ceremony, he said Nevada leads the nation in producing the most solar energy per capita, and he wants to make renewable energy one of the state’s base industries.

“The value of solar energy is incalculable,” he said.

Solar is important to the region as much as to each state individually, public utilities officials from Nevada and California said.

“We really do have to operate on the basis of Western regional cooperation,” California Public Utilities Commissioner John Bohn said.

Neal Schmale, president and chief operating officer of Sempra Generation, went further.

“Energy efficiency and renewable energy and not just California and Nevada issues. There is a need for cooperation nationally and internationally,” he said. “This is one small example of what can be done if we work together.”

Cassie Tomlin can be reached at 948-2073 or cassie.tomlin@hbcpub.com.

Discussion: 4 comments so far…

By Bighorn

1/22/09 at 6:43 p.m.

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Sold to California? That energy goes into a centeral grid. The california energy is a hybrid of coal,hydro,solar and nuclear. Not all clean. If you look at the bottom of the photo, they had to scrape up all the desert below it. This leaves a serious eco footprint. While 80 acres is not too big, the plans to turn all of our public lands into a centeral energy grid so we can sell it to california is an easily avoidable trashing of public land when you consider the vast acreage of developed areas like roof tops and parking lots. This energy does not work at night and photovoltaics do not even work in extreme heat. This creates a need for fossil fuel and other dirty energy backup. A lot of people just don't care about the desert and will say, get rid of it all to save the planet from global warming, but the building right next to these panels is a gas fired power plant. They don't like to talk about that. This is not exactly a climate change solution. What a shame that our law makers are so willing to trash the scenery and wildlife of Nevada when not one acre needs to be sacrificed. If it is placed on the personal home, batteries can be charged and no carbon fuel needs to be burned. Too bad the green economy is no where close to green.

www.basinandrangewatch,org
By davidcurtis

1/22/09 at 8:14 p.m.

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Finally, some good news!
Cheers to all the people who made this project happen, (even if I didn't vote for you...)

And please do not forget all those existing roof tops right in the developed valley waiting for PV.

Covering those next will save the scenery the previous comment is concerned about. (& me too)
By johnevegas

1/22/09 at 8:19 p.m.

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"The value of solar energy is incalculable," he said.

I agree. So is the value of using desert lands, of which we are plentiful, for this purpose.

Well done to all involved!
By bdover

1/23/09 at 12:39 p.m.

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I agree with Bighorn that giant solar facilities in the desert are not as efficient, or useful as individual panels mounted on rooftops. In So. Nevada, we are blessed with abundant sunshine we can use nearly year round. For some reason, which I suspect is the influence of the frozen Rust Belt and Northeast states, as well as our monopolistic power industries, there has been only minor research and money expended on individual solar power. There is no way to excuse that it takes 20 Grand or so to put solar on the roof of my small house. We will need a revolution, or some calamity, to push this idea forward.