Arizona Solar Center Blog

Four technologies aim to use heat from the sun to make electricity. But which one has the edge?

Nearly a century ago, American engineer Frank Shuman erected five immense, trough-shaped mirrors in Meadi, Egypt. The parabolic reflectors directed sunlight onto a tube suspended above their 200-foot lengths. Water inside the tubes boiled and created steam. The steam powered a 65-horsepower engine, which pumped 6,000 gallons of water per minute from the Nile River to nearby cotton fields. It was the world’s first concentrated solar power (CSP) plant.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an Executive Order directing the California Air Resources Board to adopt regulations increasing the stateGovernor Schwarzenegger advances California’s Renewable Energy Portfolio Standard to 33 per cent by 2020.

Tucson Electric Power Co. is seeking bids to locate a "utility scale" solar plant in the Tucson area, along with some smaller installations on underused land, possibly on reclaimed landfills. In a request for proposals released last week, the utility seeks to buy 50,000 to 100,000 megawatt-hours of energy per year from solar installations built and owned by third parties.

Arizona received $9.6 million Monday that will be funneled to small cities and towns across the state to further their goals for energy efficiency. The disbursement, part of $354 million pool released by the U.S. Department of Energy, is for Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grants. Much of those funds already have been distributed to large cities and counties in the state.

Arizona State University West is boosting its green profile over the next several months with a major retrofit of campus light fixtures - indoors and out - to high-efficiency models. ASU campuses have a reputation to uphold after the "Princeton Review" named ASU's Tempe campus as a "standout" on its list of the greenest universities in the country.

Mesa's Energy Resources Department and SolFocus, a California-based solar energy company with a manufacturing plant in Mesa, will showcase new solar technology at the city's Central Arizona Project Water Treatment Plant in east Mesa. SolFocus will build 11 next-generation concentrating photovoltaic solar arrays alongside four existing demonstration arrays they have previously installed.

China has become second only to the US in its national power-generating capacity and is now the world’s largest CO2 emitter, according to a report from Harvard and Tsinghua Universities. The report also demonstrates the enormous potential for wind-generated electricity in China.

Field of panels will stretch for 25 miles

Arizona Public Service Co. will get to count about $20 million in incentives paid to outfit schools with solar power as part of its residential allotment this year. The Arizona Corporation Commission approved the measure on Wednesday to ensure schools are not left out of incentives offered by the utility.

Just a friendly reminder that beginning today, the new modified SRP EarthWise Residential Solar Energy Program requirements go into effect.

The Arizona Corporation Commission has the authority to set renewable energy standards and allow utilities to collect tariffs to meet them, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled. The ruling, filed Wednesday morning by Judge Joseph B. Heilman, affirmed the ability of the ACC to set such standards, despite a lawsuit brought by the Goldwater Institute on behalf of several Arizona Public Service Co. clients.

Recently, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu stated that $37 million in funding from the Recovery Act will be available to qualified small businesses through the Department of Energy (DOE) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs. This funding report follows a sequence of numerous other green technology allocations from the Stimulus program, which are being announced on nearly a weekly basis.

The City of Tucson is taking advantage of Tucson Electric Power’s SunShare subsidies to help fund seven new photovoltaic arrays that should boost the city’s solar generating capacity by more than 1MW.

The federal government offers a rebate of 30% (up to $1500) for A/C units as well as for heating units.

Costs, challenges discussed; TEP unveils proposal

Xcel Energy's Cameo unit will become the first coal-fired plant in the country to be linked to a solar-energy array. Xcel and Abengoa Solar, which will build the solar unit, broke ground on the $4.5 million project east of Grand Junction, Colorado on Thursday. The goal of the pilot study is to see how effectively a field of parabolic mirrors can cut the amount of coal used to generate electricity.

Students, mainly from the College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, have been working double shifts for the past week to assemble their entry in the U.S. Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, in time for Friday's Solar Fusion events at the University of Arizona.