Solar belt expands to West Texas
Large, utility-scale solar projects, which are traditionally found in California, Nevada or even Arizona, are expanding and will now also be found in West Texas.
Today, CPS Energy, the municipal electric utility of San Antonio, Texas, announced a 20-year power purchase agreement with Tessera Solar for a facility set to go live next year with an initial 27 megawatts of electricity generation that could be extended to 130 megawatts.
Bob Lukefahr, chief executive of Tessera Solar’s North American unit, tells Environmental Capital that West Texas has a good mix of low humidity, little cloud cover and due to the relatively high altitude, fewer particulates.
Tessera plans to use a solar dish technology developed by Stirling Energy Systems, known as “SunCatcher. The dish-like devise and its curved glass mirrors act as solar concentrator, collecting solar energy that then power a four-cylinder reciprocating solar Stirling engine, to generates electricity.
Both Tessera and Stirling are owned by NTR, an Irish clean energy developer.
Outside of Texas, Tessera is looking to develop two major utility-scale solar facilities in Southern California: One 850-megawatt facility for Southern California Edison, and a 900-megawatt facility for San Diego Gas & Electric.
