PSH withdraws its petition to amend the licence for Palen project

Just days after the California Energy Commission (CEC) recommended approval of a Reduced Acreage Alternative to the Palen Solar Electric Generating System (PSEGS), it has emerged that an initiative has been taken to withdraw the project’s licence application.

According to media reports, Palen Solar Holdings (PSH), a joint venture of BrightSource Energy and Abengoa, chose to withdraw its petition after Commission’s Presiding Member’s Proposed Decision (PMPD). The CEC’s committee had stated that the Reduced Acreage Alternative with a single solar tower is a superior alternative to the proposed PSEGS amendment.

The planned facility is located halfway between Indio and Blythe in Riverside County, California. The proposed PSEGS amendment called for two 250-MW generating units to be built at the site, each with a 750-foot solar tower and 85,000 heliostats.

Interestingly, the CEC’s event schedule on its site still shares that Committee Conference on the revised Presiding Member’s Proposed Decision - Palen Solar Electric Generating System- is slated for October 6.

Schneider Electric DCS solution chosen for two CSP plants

Energy management specialist Schneider Electric has signed an agreement to design, install and manage the distributed control system for Khi Solar One and KaXu Solar One CSP plants.

The projects are located in the arid land near Upington in the Northern Cape province of South Africa.

The objective is to monitor all solar plant processes, including power block and solar field areas. Foremost, there will be control over position of the heliostats and the solar power trough collectors in order to efficiently capture the sun’s energy. The system will manage operations of the plants at three levels: the physical solar field elements and data acquisition, the communications network and concentrators along the solar field, and the main controllers for the plant operation.

Both Khi Solar One and KaXu Solar One use advanced dry cooling technology and superheated steam receiver technology. The saturated steam can be withdrawn on demand to be conditioned in an independent superheater and feed the turbine, allowing overnight power generation or during transient periods with cloud coverage. Serving the same purpose, in the case of Kaxu Solar One, is a full-load molten salt storage capacity of two and half hours.

Accolades for Abengoa Yield’s Solana plant

Abengoa Yield’s Arizona-based 280 MW solar power plant, Solana, has bagged the Governor’s Award for Energy & Technology Innovation and the President’s Award, both part of Arizona Forward’s 34th Annual Environmental Excellence Awards.

The Arizona Forward Environmental Excellence Awards competition is Arizona’s oldest and most prestigious awards competition focusing exclusively on sustainability.

The company shared that the jury chose Solana as it not only boosts Arizona’s solar industry, but offers significant environmental benefits.

New initiative for responsible renewable energy development 

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the California Natural Resources Agency last week released a landscape-level draft renewable energy and conservation plan covering more than 22 million acres in the California desert.

The draft Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan (DRECP) is a landscape-scale blueprint that is the result of an extensive public participation process. The objective is to focus on protection and conservation of the California desert important for wildlife, recreation, cultural preservation and other uses, while encouraging streamlined renewable energy development in the right places. 

The initiative included collaboration among the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), California Energy Commission (CEC), California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) and other stakeholders.

The public will have until January 2015 to provide additional comments on the draft plan, which includes lands in Imperial, Inyo, Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties.