Oct 21 2010
The 1 MW solar PV power plant that came up close to the Roger Road Wastewater Reclamation Facility with the participation of SunEdison an auxiliary company of MEMC Electronic Materials, SOLON Corporation and Pima County was activated recently.
The plant is an outcome of a sustainability decision taken over by the Pima County Board of Supervisors in May 2007 to achieve 15% of its total power consumption from renewable energy sources by the year 2025.
According to the contracted accord signed by SunEdison and Pima County, SunEdison has invested for the construction of the 1 MW power plant without financial participation from Pima County. SunEdison financed the project and constructed it by utilizing the services of SOLON Corporation, a Tucson based company. The 1 MW plant was constructed deploying SOLON solar panels with single axis tracking technology. SunEdison owns the system and manages its operations by utilizing the contracted services of SOLON. The solar power produced from the solar module will be purchased by Pima County at a pre-fixed price for a period of 20 years. The solar plant will generate over 2 million kWh of electricity every year and a total of 40 million kWh during the contract period of 20 years. The energy generated from the plant can be used to meet the power requirements of around 3,700 average U.S. homes every year. Rough estimates show that Pima County will save over $1.2 to $2 million during the 20 year contract period.
The ecological benefits related to the solar plant include removal of around 47 million pounds of CO2 emissions during the estimated period of its operations which can be equated to removing of around 4,600 cars plying on the roads for a year. The plant will also save over 1.1 to 1.6 million gallons of water that would have been wasted during the wet cooling procedure adopted in usual power generation.
Source: http://www.sunedison.com/