BUSINESS
January 5, 2009 | Marla Dickerson
Generating clean electricity that's as cheap as power from fossil fuels is the Holy Grail of green-energy companies. A new solar project powering California homes appears to be closing in on that prize. Sempra Generation, a subsidiary of Sempra Energy in San Diego, just took the wraps off a 10-megawatt solar farm in Nevada. That's small by industry standards, enough to light just 6,400 homes. But the ramifications are potentially huge.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
December 16, 2009 | By Phil Willon and David Zahniser
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power announced Tuesday that it has shelved plans for a 970-acre solar farm near the Salton Sea, just as members of the City Council signaled that they were unprepared to support the project. The DWP's interim general manager, S. David Freeman, said he was troubled by the costs of the 55-megawatt project, which had been slated to go up on land purchased by the utility in 2006. Freeman made his comments moments after Councilwoman Jan Perry, who heads the council's Energy and the Environment Committee, said she planned to send the solar project back to the DWP for more work.
BUSINESS
July 7, 2007 | From Reuters
A San Francisco-based company said Friday that it planned to build the world's largest solar power farm near Fresno. The 80-megawatt farm will occupy as many as 640 acres and upon completion in 2011 will be 17 times the size of the largest U.S. solar farm, said Cleantech America, a privately held company. The farm will also be about seven times the size of the world's biggest plant and double the largest planned farm, both in Germany.
BUSINESS
January 13, 2009 | Marla Dickerson
Frozen capital markets are putting the chill on a fast-growing California solar company, a sign that the economic downturn is being felt even in the state's thriving renewable-energy sector. Hayward-based OptiSolar Inc. confirmed Monday that it dismissed nearly half its 600-member workforce last week, cutting 185 jobs at its Hayward facility and 105 at a plant in Sacramento.
BUSINESS
February 14, 2010 | By Todd Woody
A developer who proposes to cut down hundreds of trees to make way for a massive project could expect to provoke a fair amount of environmental outrage. Not in California City. Officials in this sprawling desert community east of Bakersfield are thrilled at NextEra Energy's move to break out the chain saws. The firm, a subsidiary of utility giant FPL Group, is seeking to build a solar power plant in the area that would consume a large amount of water. The trees are tamarisks, a water-hungry invasive species, and removing them could help recharge the aquifer in this arid region.
BUSINESS
November 4, 2010 | By Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times
A Native American tribe has filed a lawsuit against the federal government in an attempt to block construction of Tessera Solar's Imperial Valley solar power plant in the Sonoran Desert. The 709-megawatt solar farm, planned for more than 6,000 acres of public land near El Centro, wrapped up its approval process in October. But the Quechan tribe alleged in a complaint against the Interior Department that the installation could damage "cultural and biological resources of significance.