The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) approved four Pacific Gas and Electric (PE&E) power purchase agreements for three utility-scale solar and one geothermal, for a total of 585.5 megawatts (MW) of renewable energy.
One of the projects is the largest utility scale thermal solar plant in the world. The Mojave Solar Park will be built by Israel-based Solel and will generate 553 MW of solar energy (enough for 400,000 homes.)
The thermal parabolic trough plant will cover up to 6,000 acres, or nine square miles in the Mojave Desert, and should be operating by 2011. It will consist of 1.2 million mirrors and 317 miles of vacuum tubing.
Cleantech America LLC and GreenVolts, Inc. are also building solar plants that will deliver up to 7 MW of energy in 2009. The plants will be located near PG&E's infrastructure and customer base to reduce transmission costs.
