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Despite recent legislative attacks that had one manufacturer threatening to pull up stakes, Arizona’s solar industry seems to be doing quite well. Global solar giant (and near stake-puller) Suntech Power remains committed to building a manufacturing plant in Goodyear, and yesterday Governor Jan Brewer, Mayor Lyn Truitt and industry representatives announced the arrival of a solar manufacturing plant in the town of Surprise, AZ.

In Goodyear, Suntech will be making solar panels that convert sunlight directly into electricity. Coming to Surprise is a different sort of operation. Rioglass Solar is a Spanish company that manufactures curved glass sheets used for parabolic concentrators in solar thermal electric stations.

Just such a power plant, for which Rioglass will provide product, is set to be built by fellow U.S.-operating Spanish solar firm Abengoa Solar. Abengoa’s 280-megawatt Solana Generating Station will be located about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix in Gila Bend, Arizona.

Arizona is gaining a lot of attention from the global solar industry since Governor Brewer signed the state’s Renewable Energy Tax Incentives, offering property tax and income tax incentives to companies establishing or expanding headquarters or manufacturing facilities in Arizona.

Also, reports Environmental Leader, national publication and location adviser for site professionals, Business Facilities, named Arizona the “king” of solar power, giving the state a number-one ranking in both manufacturing and the state’s overall alternative energy industry.

In addition to solar specific incentives, Governor Brewer attributed Arizona’s cleantech growth to its skilled workforce and low payroll taxes. José Maria Villanueva, President and CEO of Rioglass Solar, noted that “[Arizona's] excellent workforce and rail-served land is the perfect fit for our new U.S. operations.”

The Rioglass Solar manufacturing facility will create 100 new green jobs in Surprise.

Source: Environmental Leader
Photo Credit: Find Vacation Rentals

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During his weekly address to the nation last Friday, President Obama announced the allocation of $2 billion in loan guarantees to two solar companies with big projects planned or underway in the United States. Abengoa Solar Inc., a Spanish firm, will build a large solar thermal electric power plant in Arizona, and Abound Solar will use funds to build manufacturing plants in Indiana and Colorado.

$1.45 billion goes (with conditions) to the Abengoa Solar project, dubbed “Solana.” The 280-megawatt CSP plant will be located near Gila Bend, Arizona, about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. Solana will require a new 230-kilovolt (kV) transmission line to interconnect with the Arizona Public Service (APS) electric grid. According to President Obama, the project will create roughly 1,600 new jobs, and over 70 percent of the construction components and products involved will be manufacturing in the United States. Upon completion, Solana will be one of the largest solar power-generating plants in the world.

Abound Solar Manufacturing is getting $400 million in loan guarantees to open two new plants that will manufacture second-generation thin-film solar modules. The first, to be built in Tipton, Indiana, will involve the renovation and reuse of an abandoned Chrysler factory, while construction of the second plant is already underway in Longmont, Colorado. Combined, the two plants will create more than 2,000 jobs, said Obama, with better than 75 percent of those jobs being permanent positions.

All told, the three projects will create over 5,000 new jobs, according to a White House fact sheet. And the announcement of these latest federal loan guarantees brings the total to $14.8 billion that the Department of Energy has invested in $22.4 billion-worth of solar energy projects.

Photo Credit: ReCharge

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) rests in one of the sunniest regions in the world and is home to Abu Dhabi, one of the world’s most fascinating cities. Today, the UAE announced plans to build a 100-megawatt concentrated solar power (CSP) plant 120 kilometers (~75 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi. When completed, the power plant will be the “world’s largest,” a claim heard often by admen all over the solar industry and the world’s eager-to-green governments.

As Inhabitat points out, the planned Desertec project, which aims to install hundreds of gigawatts of CSP, would make this UAE project look like a freckle on a giant’s back. But Desertec is many years from even finding all the money to finance the project, while UAE’s “Shams 1,” named after an Arabic word for sun, will begin construction this coming fall and should be complete within two years.

Shams 1 is being financed by three different entities: Masdar, a planned eco-city financed primarily by the UAE government, French multinational oil giant Total, and Spanish company Abengoa Solar. Masdar will own 60 percent of the power plant. Total and Abengoa will each get 20 percent. The plant will consist of 768 parabolic trough solar collectors provided by Abengoa Solar and will be equipped with a back-up natural gas boiler to provide energy when the sun is down.

Shams 1 will help UAE meet its goal of 7 percent renewable energy by 2020.

As to whether it will be the world’s largest, who knows? It obviously ignores SEGS in California’s Mojave Desert, which produces up to 354 MW of solar thermal electricity, I assume on the technicality that SEGS is actually nine solar power plants within the same facility.

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