2010 brilliant for New Mexico solar industry

[jpak]

http://sustainablebusinessoregon.com/national/2011/01/2010-brilliant-for-new-mexico-solar.html

This year might go down as a turning point in New Mexico's solar power development, thanks to robust growth in supply and demand.

Commercial and utility-scale solar systems began to dot the landscape this year, paving the way for marked, and sometimes dramatic, revenue growth for solar manufacturers and installers.

A true industry cluster emerged, with local factories turning out basic products and components that homegrown service providers assembled and mounted on homes and businesses.

The state’s first utility-scale solar electric plant started operating in October near Cimarron in northeastern New Mexico. The 30-megawatt solar photovoltaic array went on line in December, said Jim Van Someren, spokesman for the Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, which is buying all electricity from the facility.

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[Parche]

1. solar is the next big thing

we should put a solar power plant in death valley and the desert
it would power all of california plus some

in fact, we should put huge solar plants in iraq, they could power all of europe
and they could pay us back with the money they make......

[arachadillo]

2. Solar Energy

"This year might go down as a turning point in New
Mexico's solar power development, thanks to robust growth in
supply and demand."

Commercial and utility-scale solar systems began to dot the
landscape this year, paving the way for marked, and sometimes
dramatic, revenue growth for solar manufacturers and
installers.

A true industry cluster emerged, with local factories turning
out basic products and components that homegrown service
providers assembled and mounted on homes and businesses."

Hard to tell from the PR release the exact funding source of
the "local factories" that turned out those basic
panels.

A good deal of noise is being make about how foreign capital
and actors are introducing themselves into the solar market. A
quick review of the online solar market shows that the
price/watt continues to decline, in some instances for both
large scale residential (over 1000W systems) and a few
smaller, single panels.

Still, the basic cost of the smaller panels (under 100w) hangs
around the $5/Watt range. Moving up to the over 100W size,
finding panels from brand name companies still costs in the
$4/Watt range.

Some of the newer suppliers are touting panels (mostly
polychrystalline) in the $2/Watt range. It's now a matter of
determining the reliability of the non-branded $2/Watt panels.

As for the commercial and utility-scale projects, no doubt the
majority of them were the solar thermal. It will be nice to
see how NM incorporates Concentrated Solar into their plans.

[kristopher]

3. We are getting there slowly but surely.

Sachs> Solar Cost thru 2020