Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) announced the start of a project to test seven emerging photovoltaic technologies in Bakersfield, California.
Project Brightfield is located on the site of a former Chevron refinery and aims to evaluate the the performance of six thin-film technologies and one crystalline-silicon photovoltaic technology for use at other company-owned facilities.
The companies demonstrating thin-film technologies are Abound Solar,
MiaSolé, Schüco, Solar Frontier, Sharp, and Solibro, while the
crystalline-silicon photovoltaic technology is provided by Innovalight.
The companies will have access to testing data for their products and comparisons to a
benchmark solar technology–an undisclosed brand of commercially available PV solar.
“Testing competing technologies side by side means that we can better understand their potential application at other Chevron facilities," said Des King, president of Chevron Technology Ventures, the division
of Chevron U.S.A. Inc. that identifies, evaluates and demonstrates
emerging technologies.
7,700 solar panels on the 8-acre site are expected to generate approximately
740 kilowatts (kW) of electricity. The power will be directed to the local
utility grid as well as to Chevron’s oil production operations at the
Kern River Field.
Project Brightfield is Chevron’s second completed project that repurposes an existing asset to integrate renewable power. The first was a wind farm on a former Texaco refinery site near Casper, Wyoming, where 11 wind turbines generate 16.5 megawatts of power. A third project–a concentrating solar photovoltaic installation at a Chevron Mining Inc. facility near Questa, New Mexico–is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010.
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