US DOE offers conditional loan guarantee commitments to support nearly $4.5B in Loans for 3 California Cd-Te photovoltaic solar power plants
30 June 2011
The US Department of Energy (DOE) is offering conditional commitments for loan guarantees of approximately $4.5 billion to support three alternating current Cadmium Telluride (Cd-Te) thin film photovoltaic (PV) solar generation facilities:
DOE is offering a conditional commitment for a loan guarantee to AV Solar Ranch 1, LLC to support the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project. The 230 megawatt (MW) project will be located in the Antelope Valley area of the Western Mojave Desert, approximately 80 miles north of Los Angeles, California. The project will feature a utility-scale deployment of innovative inverters with voltage regulation and monitoring technologies that are new to the US market.
The inverters enable the project to provide more stable and continuous power, increasing the efficiency and reliability of large-scale solar power plants greater than 100 MW. The facility is expected to generate more than 622,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year, equivalent to powering over 54,000 homes, and will avoid over 350,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. Power from the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company.
DOE is offering conditional commitments for partial loan guarantees to Desert Sunlight 250, LLC and Desert Sunlight 300, LLC to support the Desert Sunlight project. The 550 MW project will be located on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in eastern Riverside County, California. The Desert Sunlight project is expected to use 8.8 million Cd-Te thin film solar PV modules, which are commercially proven and have been deployed since 2001. The facility is expected to generate enough electricity to power over 110,000 homes and will avoid over 735,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually.
Project construction will take place in two phases; Phase I will generate 300MW of power, which will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company, while Phase II will generate 250 MW of power, which will be sold to Southern California Edison. The $1.88 billion in loans that are partially guaranteed by DOE will be funded by a syndicate of institutional investors and commercial banks led by lead lender and lender-applicant, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC, which submitted the project under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP), and Citibank N.A. as co-lead arranger.
DOE is offering conditional commitments for partial loan guarantees to Topaz Solar Farms, LLC to support the Topaz Solar project. The 550 MW project will be located in eastern San Luis Obispo County, California. The Topaz Solar project will use more than 8.5 million Cd-Te thin film solar PV modules and is anticipated to generate enough electricity to power approximately 110,000 homes and avoid nearly 725,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The project’s power will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company. The $1.93 billion in loans that are partially guaranteed by DOE will be funded by a syndicate of institutional investors and commercial banks led by lead lender and lender-applicant, The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, who submitted the project under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP).
First Solar, Inc., with headquarters in Tempe, Arizona, is sponsoring all three projects and will provide Cd-Te thin film solar PV modules for the projects from a new manufacturing plant that has begun construction in Mesa, Arizona, as well as from its recently expanded manufacturing plant in Perrysburg, Ohio, which serves as its primary hub for engineering, research and development.
The Department of Energy’s Loan Programs Office administers three separate programs: the Title XVII Section 1703 and Section 1705 loan guarantee programs, and the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing (ATVM) loan program. The loan guarantee programs support the deployment of commercial technologies along with innovative technologies that avoid, reduce, or sequester greenhouse gas emissions, while the ATVM supports the development of advanced vehicle technologies.
Under all three programs, DOE has issued loans, loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling more than $38 billion to support 40 clean energy projects across the US. The program’s 23 generation projects will produce over 32 million megawatt-hours annually, or enough to power more than 2.5 million homes.
To date, the program has conditionally committed more than $16 billion in loan guarantees to support 15 solar generation projects. DOE has also conditionally committed financing to support numerous other projects, such as four of the world’s largest solar projects, two geothermal projects, the world’s largest wind farm and the nation’s first new nuclear power plant in three decades.
This (Topax Farms) is a huge solar cells power project. Costly ($2B or so) but will produce sustainable and clean power for 110,000 homes.
Another 725 similar projects could supply enough power for all US homes for only $1450B or so, and a mere 145 similar projects could supply power for 20% of US homes. A mix of solar and wind could do a better 24/7 job at a lower cost.
All in all, it would be a relatively cheap way to supply clean power for all US homes. A doable solution to solve a perceived problem.
Posted by: HarveyD | 30 June 2011 at 08:50 AM
It always bothers me when solar capacity is quoted in MegaWatts or even worse, in how many "homes" they could supply.
I'm glad they quoted estimated MW-Hrs. 32 million MWH represents almost 1% of total US MWH generation (~4000 million MWH annually). This is a huge percentage of the 10-20% target for solar. We'd only need 10-20 more plants like this to achieve solar's current goal.
After the 10-20% mark, you have to have a storage solution before you can add anymore to the grid.
Posted by: TM | 30 June 2011 at 09:09 AM
TM:
The 32 million MWh includes wind farms, geothermal and nuclear.
Posted by: DavidJ | 30 June 2011 at 09:37 AM
I support low-interest loans for renewable energy projects by private companies. All these companies should also be tax-exempt until further notice!!! No corporate taxes, no capital gains taxes either for investors investing in them.
Posted by: ejj | 30 June 2011 at 10:05 AM
What a ridiculous farce, $4.5 billion for just a nominal capacity of (230 x 3) or 690 Megawatt hours. Which must be divided in half for when its nightime, and zero generation.
Most utlity plants are projected to last for 30 years minimum, but solar photovoltaics rarely last 11 years from historical operating experience.
What a grim joke on us, to have to borrow money from the Chinese for such total... Boondoggles !
With an efficiency of roughly 10%, that means we will be thermally polluting the local area with 9 times the amount of waste thermal pollution, about 6200 megawatts of which about 30%, is more than the desert would have recieved from the sun otherwise, or 2100 megawatts of additional and certinly man-made global warming and useless thermal pollution. While raising the local Albedo from 71% to virtual unity, or as close as the engineers can get it, or about 2100 megawatts. I wonder how many animals and even species will roast and die from such phony environmental feel-goodism?
Posted by: Stan Peterson | 30 June 2011 at 10:32 AM
Stan - the MWH figure is calculated on only the energy it collects, which is during the day. MW figues (energy/second) must be adjusted for daylight and efficiency, that is why I prefer the MWH figures.
DavidJ - good point. How do we get 15 more of these units in service? perhaps the first Bush's 1000 points of light expanded to 1,000,000 points of light?
The cost does need to come down though.
Posted by: TM | 30 June 2011 at 11:09 AM
Doing the math, these are about $4/(peak rated watt).
This sounds a bit high for a utility scale project.
As pointed out, the solar peak watt must be divided down quite a bit - maybe they get 20% usage of the peak wattage vs 80% + for more traditional forms of electricity.
So $4 goes to $16/Wpeak - ouch.
Worst part of all, is that electricity generation has no impact on imported oil (for the next decade or two).
Posted by: TM | 30 June 2011 at 11:46 AM
Let's dissect this:
"Under all three programs, DOE has issued loans, loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling more than $38 billion to support 40 clean energy projects across the US. The program’s 23 generation projects will produce over 32 million megawatt-hours annually, or enough to power more than 2.5 million homes."
Clearly, 17 projects aren't "generation" projects which tells me that they are probably biofuel programs so you can't apply the $38billion figure to the 32 million megawatt hour figure.
That said, let's assume the 32 million Mw/h/yr program costs $32 billion (easy math). 32tw/h which has a retail market value of $3.2billion/year. Ten years to recover the tax payer's money. Consider that wholsale prices are lower and you may be looking at 15-20 years for recovery. Considering that these technologies will continue to advance and come down in cost and that the same factories and workers will be able to produce in the future, I'd say that the government has made an excellent investment for once.
Posted by: GreenPlease | 30 June 2011 at 12:11 PM
Sounds very expensive.
Will this advance the state-of-the-art - I hope so, but probably not much, these are existing designs.
Considering that these technologies will continue to advance and come down in cost, I'd say that the government should wait.
BUT, there are MANY programs where the govt is much MORE wasteful.
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The stats and article itself show a point by the author: that many enrolled cannot finish because of the student debt being carried or the increasing debt that the student would bear. Especially now, when jobs are extremely difficult to get on both end of the spectrum - just starting and just laid-off after 30 years and "only" 55 how do you pay loans.
easy online loans
Posted by: Qadir Tapra | 06 December 2012 at 11:31 PM