oleocene.org

SoCal Edison signs contract for massive solar energy project
Laura Wides ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted: 8/20/2005 09:56 pm

LOS ANGELES — A huge solar energy facility capable of producing more electricity than all other U.S. sun-power projects combined is being planned for the California desert.
Southern California Edison signed a 20-year power purchase agreement Monday with Phoenix-based Stirling Energy Systems to build a 4,500-acre project that would produce 500 megawatts, enough electricity for a small city — about 278,000 homes.
“We’re very proud to be leaders in the country in bringing renewable energy sources into operation,” said SoCal Edison Chairman John Bryson.
“California is heavily dependent on natural gas. Natural gas costs have climbed extraordinarily. Any sensible electricity policy for a large group of customers needs to have diversity to it, and renewable energy need to be part of it.”
The deal is contingent on the California Public Utilities Commission’s approval and would begin with a pilot project using 40 of Stirling’s 37-foot-diameter dishes. The commission is scheduled to meet Thursday.
Solar energy makes particular sense in California, where peak usage coincides with the hottest hours and the sunniest days of the year.
The deal came a day after President Bush signed a bill that will give billions in tax breaks to encourage new energy options, including renewable energy production.
News of the agreement rippled through the Solar World Congress in Orlando, Fla., on Tuesday.
“It helps the public understand that solar energy is not something that’s going to happen in their grandchildren’s days,” said Brad Collins, head of the American Solar Energy Society, which sponsored the conference. “It’s happening right now.”
The 20,000-dish project would be built in the desert near Victorville, about 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles, with construction expected to be finished by 2010.
It would be capable of expanding beyond the planned 500 megawatts.
Edison’s 4.5 million customers won’t have to wait until the project is finished. The project is expected to begin generating grid-ready electricity when the first dish is working, said Stirling CEO Bruce Osborn.
The systems look like giant mirrored satellite dishes. They harness the sun’s rays to heat up hydrogen gas, which drives a small generator. The dishes are computer controlled and can rotate throughout the day to follow the sun across the sky.
Stirling dish technology has been tested for 20 years, but the proposed project marks the first time it would be used in a major commercial project.

phylippe a écrit :Plus d'info en Français ici.

Le 8 août 2005 le Président Bush a visité l'ensemble des installations tstant la capacité de conversion de l'énergie solaire, situées sur la base de l'Air Force de Kirkland, à Albuquerque ( Nouveau-Mexique ). On notera la taille des miroir de 12 mètres de diamètre, par rapport à celle des personnes présentes. Sur la base d'un contrat signé par le Société Edison, une filiale de Southern California Edison ( SCE ) le pays est maintenant prêt à se situer comme un leader en matière d'énergies renouvelables. Une convention vient donc d'être signée, sujette à l'approbation de la commission des projets d'intérêt public de Californie, concernant le développement d'une installation de 500 mégawatts située à 70 miles au nord est de Los Angeles, utilisant cette combinaison moteur Stirling-miroirs solaires. Ceci serait suffisant pour alimenter en énergie un demi-million de logements. Le projet serait d'étendre ce projet à 850 MW. La construction s'étendrait sur une période de quatre ans, en partant de 2008. Si l'installation est portée à 850 MW ceci porterait le nombre de miroirs à 34.000.

Pastaga13 a écrit :Il semble assez aisé de se fabriquer un petit moteur stirling :
http://www.photologie.net/indexStirSimpl.html
J'ai été surpris qu'un tel moteur fabriqué avec de la récup' par un amateur puisse tourner simplement posé sur le bout des doigts ou par le froid généré par l'évaporation d'un peu d'eau !
Par contre la puissance fournie est négligeable...

Huge solar plants bloom in desert
Will Wade, Wired News
The barren deserts of Southern California are known for relentless sunshine and miles of empty space -- the perfect combination for the world's most ambitious solar-energy projects.

Two Southern California utility companies are planning to develop a pair of sun-powered power plants that they claim will dwarf existing solar facilities and could rival fossil-fuel-driven power plants.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are working with Stirling Energy Systems, a Phoenix startup that has paired a large and efficient solar dish with a 200-year-old Stirling engine design.

Stirling Energy Systems is planning to build two separate solar farms, one with the capacity to generate 500 megawatts of electricity in the Mojave Desert near Victorville, California, for SoCal Edison, and a 300-megawatt plant in the Imperial Valley, near Calexico, California, for SDG&E. The utilities have signed 20-year deals to buy all the juice the farms can turn out, and have options to expand the plants if they are successful.

"Without question, this will be the largest solar project in the world," said Gil Alexander, a spokesman for SoCal Edison. "It will be bigger than all U.S. solar-energy projects combined."
(15 November 2005)