City Capital Corp. (CTCC)

[MONEYMADE]

U.S.’s largest solar P.V. tracker plant gets $ 1.187 billion backing (BTW MADE BY SUNPOWER CORP.)

By Oliver M. Bayani


T20 single-axis solar tracker by SunPower.
SunPower Corporation SunPower Corporation received a $1.187 billion conditional loan guarantee to finance a photovoltaic solar power plant which, at 250 megawatts, will be the largest utility-scale solar P.V. project in the United States that uses tracking technology.

The Department of Energy loan guarantee serves as government backing to make good on SunPower’s loans if the company itself cannot.

The California Valley Solar Ranch will be built in San Luis Obispo County, California in the second half of 2011. It will use solar panels that can track the sun as it moves across the sky. With the ability to realign itself to capture sunlight more efficiently, solar farms with tracking technology generate 25 percent more power annually compared with fixed P.V. installations, according to the Energy Department. "The efficiencies created by the California Valley Solar Ranch project will help lower the cost of solar power and encourage more utility-scale solar deployment," said Energy Secretary Stephen Chu during the official launch of SunPower’s Flextronic manufacturing factory in Milpitas, California last Tuesday.

Loans

The Department of Energy, through the Loan Programs Office, has issued loan guarantees and offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling over $19 billion for 21 clean energy projects.

Ten of these projects are for electricity generation of a total of over 23 million megawatt-hours, enough to power over two million homes.

The size of SunPower’s conditional loan guarantee places it on the department’s list of largest loans made to date. It follows a $1.6 billion loan secured by BrightSource in April 11 and a $1.45 billion loan awarded to Abengoa Solar last December 2010.

BrightSource’s 392-MW Ivanpah project and Abengoa’s 250-MW Solana plant are solar thermal or concentrating solar power projects, not photovoltaic.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest utility in the state, will purchase all of California Valley Solar Ranch’s output for 25 years.

It was agreed in November 2010 that NRG Energy, through its solar unit, will own the power plant. It plans to invest $450 million in equity in the project in the next four years.

Aside from building and designing the solar farm, SunPower will operate and maintain the facility.

New mandate

The facility will help PG&E comply with a new California law requiring utilities to derive a portion of the electricity they produce from renewable sources by 2020. Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill into law at the opening of SunPower’s new facility last April 12.

California's three largest utilities had been required to procure 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010. The law signed on Tuesday expands that mandate to 33 percent by 2020 and extends the coverage to all utilities in the state.

Currently, most utilities heavily rely on hydropower, biomass and geothermal.





CTCC THE TECHNOLOGY

"It also has proprietary technology that promises to be the future of the industry."
"The company is particularly enthused about its adaptation for terrestrial use of solar generators previously used only in space applications," said company CEO Donald MacIntyre. "We're also in the process of patenting a system that captures off-angle solar energy without the use of a tracking device that will allow much more efficient and inexpensive generation of solar power. Green Energy is still in its infancy, and we're excited about becoming a leader in this growth industry."