Sign in Subscribe
1 min read photovoltaics

US solar market gets a $4.5 billion boost

Photovoltaics company First Solar has received around $4.5 billion in conditional loan guarantees to support three new solar power facilities.

The funding from the US Department of Energy (DOE) will help pay for the construction of three alternating-current, cadmium-telluride (Cd-Te), thin-film photovoltaic (PV) installations: Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 ($680 million), Desert Sunlight ($1.88 billion) and Topaz Solar ($1.93 billion).

Tempe, Arizona-based First Solar will provide Cd-Te thin-film solar PV modules for the projects from a new manufacturing plant now being built 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 company expects the projects will create a combined 1,400 jobs in California during peak construction.

“These projects will bring immediate jobs to California in addition to hundreds more across the supply chain,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu, upon announcing the conditional commitments for loan guarantees.

The 230-megawatt (MW) Antelope Valley Solar Ranch 1 project will feature a utility-scale deployment of innovative inverters with voltage regulation and monitoring technologies that are new to the US market. According to First Solar, the inverters will enable the project to provide more stable and continuous power, increasing the efficiency and reliability of large-scale (greater than 100 megawatts) solar power plants.

Power from the Antelope Valley facility will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E).

The 550-MW Desert Sunlight project is expected to use 8.8 million Cd-Te PV modules to generate enough electricity to power over 110,000 homes. The facility will be built in two phases, with 300 megawatts from phase one being sold to PG&E and 250 megawatts from phase two being sold to Southern California Edison.

PG&E will also buy power from the 550-MW Topaz Solar project, which will feature more than 8.5 million Cd-Te, thin-film PV modules.

Published by:

Dan Ilett

You might also like...

Sep
23
Modular Nuclear Reactors: So What?

Modular Nuclear Reactors: So What?

The Rise of Modular Nuclear Reactors: Key Players and Trends In the face of climate change and the urgent need
2 min read
Aug
02
Emergency response vehicle puts IoT on wheels

Emergency response vehicle puts IoT on wheels

Australia’s National Safety Agency has developed a prototype emergency response vehicle equipped with multi-channel communications capabilities, real-time video and
2 min read
Dec
11
The wisdom of data

The wisdom of data

As cities, buildings, things and people become more connected, less attention will be paid to what is connected and how,
2 min read
Sep
30

Customer emotions can increase service costs, call times

Lots of companies talk about keeping customers satisfied, happy or even “delighted,” but a new study has dug deeper by
1 min read
Sep
21
Maharashtra eyes smarter cities with help from Oracle, HP

Maharashtra eyes smarter cities with help from Oracle, HP

Maharashtra, the largest state economy in India, has ambitious plans to quickly develop smart cities across the region and improve
1 min read