Ed Van Herik, spokesperson for San Diego Gas & Electric, talks about big solar-thermal deal with Stirling Energy Systems, says that solar power is now "suddenly competitive"

Solar World #6

San Diego, California
September 8, 2005

By Marc Strassman
Reporter
Solar World
Etopia Media Environment and Energy News Network
Etopia Media News Networks

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Stirling Energy Systems solar power dishes


big solar deal between San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) and Stirling Energy Systems (SES)

San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) yesterday announced that it had signed an agreement with Phoenix-based Stirling Energy Systems (SES) to buy at least 300 megawatts of solar-thermal electric power from a three-square mile site in the Imperial Valley that SES will construct starting in 2008.

The agreement allows for an expansion of production up to 900 megawatts.

Construction is planned to begin in 2008, and electricity from this agreement is expected to begin flowing to homes and businesses served by SDG&E at that time.

Etopia Media's Solar World spoke today with Ed Van Herik, spokesperson for SDG&E, about this agreement between SDG&E and Stirling Energy Systems.

You can listen to that interview in its entirety by clicking here.

During that interview, Mr. Van Herik also talked about the growing popularity of the "reverse metering" program by which homeowners and businesses can pump electricity from their own photovoltaic solar electricity panels into the SDG&E grid, which runs their own meters backwards and allows the excess solar power to be used by other SDG&E customers.


listen to Robert Liden at SES explain how "solar-thermal" energy generation works

For a detailed explanation of the technology involved in the "solar-thermal" units that will be supplying the power that SDG&E will be buying from Stirling Energy Systems, you can listen to two interviews with Robert Liden, EVP and General Manager at Stirling Energy Systems, in which he discusses how they works and talks about a similar agreement recently signed between his company and Southern California Edison (SCE) to also provide them with electricity from SES's solar-thermal electricity-generating systems.

To do that, you can click on the title of the August 12, 2005, interview with Robert Liden, "Robert Liden, EVP and General Manager at Stirling Energy Systems, talks about its deal with Southern California Edison to build and operate the world's largest solar energy facility" and/or the title of the August 17, 2005, interview with him, " Robert Liden, EVP and General Manager at Stirling Energy Systems, talks about the global potential of solar-generated electricity and hydrogen".

For more information about Stirling Energy Systems (SES), click here.

listen to Rhone Resch, President of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) talk about the SDG&E-SES deal and its implications

To listen to an interview with Rhone Resch, President of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), talking about this deal between SDG&E and SES, click here.

 

Stirling Energy Systems solar power dish

Stirling Energy Systems explanatory diagram



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