[09.9.9 L.A Times]U.S. Company and China Plan Solar Project

渔音谦谦

原帖地址：http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/0 ... r.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=China&st=cse

By TODD WOODY
Published: September 8, 2009
    Chinese government officials signed an agreementon Tuesday with First Solar, an American solar developer, for a2,000-megawatt photovoltaic farm to be built in the Mongolian desert.
Set for completion in 2019, the First Solar project represents theworld’s biggest photovoltaic power plant project to date, and is partof an 11,950-megawatt renewable-energy park planned for Ordos City inInner Mongolia.
The memorandum of understanding between Chineseofficials and First Solar, the world’s largest photovoltaic cellmanufacturer, would open a potentially vast solar market in China andfollows the Chinese government’s recent moves to accelerate developmentof renewable energy.


Associated Press via First Solar
Mike Ahearn, chief executive of First Solar, left, greets Wu Bangguo,chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress ofChina. The memorandum of understanding between Chinese officials andFirst Solar would open a potentially vast solar market in China.


When completed, the Ordos solar farm would generate enoughelectricity to power about three million Chinese homes, according toFirst Solar.
First Solar, based in Tempe, Ariz., is also likelyto build a factory in China to make thin-film solar panels, said MikeAhearn, the company’s chief executive. “It is significant that anon-Chinese company can land something like this in China,” Mr. Ahearnsaid in an interview.
Most proposed large-scale solar projectsuse solar thermal technology, which deploys mirrors to heat a liquid tocreate steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine. But asphotovoltaic technology becomes more cost-competitive, utilities areturning to companies like First Solar for big solar power farms. Such projects generally have fewer environmental impacts and can be brought online faster than solar thermal plants.
“This is nuclear power-size scale,” Mr. Ahearn said of the Chinaproject. “A two-gigawatt solar project, if this is connected and iseconomical at the grid level, demonstrates that solar on a large scalereally does work.”

Financial terms of the agreement have yet to be reached and willdepend on China completing a feed-in tariff that pays a premium forelectricity generated by renewable energy projects. First Solar saidthe 2,000-megawatt power plant would cost $5 billion to $6 billion ifbuilt in the United States today, but it said the cost to build such aproject in China would probably be lower.
The Ordos agreementis the latest large-scale solar farm deal that First Solar has signedin recent months as it expands its business from manufacturing solarmodules to building power plants. The company also has agreed to supply two California utilities with 1,100 megawatts of electricity from three big solar farms.


“Discussions with First Solar about building a factory in Chinademonstrate to investors in China that they can confidently invest inthe most advanced technologies available,” Cao Zhichen, vice mayor ofOrdos Municipal Government, said in a statement.
Until theannouncement of the Ordos project, the largest single photovoltaicpower plant was the 550-megawatt Topaz solar farm to be built by FirstSolar in California. As solar panel prices continue to fall andprojects like Ordos bring further economies of scale, photovoltaicfarms are expected to become more competitive with solar thermal powerplants.
China is home to a blossoming solar industry thanks to generous government support. But Chinese companies like Suntech, the world’s third-largest solar module maker, export most of their products.
FirstSolar’s cadmium telluride solar cells are less efficient at convertingsunlight into electricity than standard crystalline silicon cells madeby companies like Suntech but they can be manufactured at asignificantly lower cost.
“Given that China has built uphomegrown companies like Suntech, it’s quite significant that they’reimporting a U.S. world leader to the marketplace,” said NathanielBullard, a solar analyst at New Energy Finance, a London marketresearch firm. “This is going to help ensure technological leadershipand not just manufacturing leadership.”
Suntech formed a venturelast year to build solar power plants in the United States and hasannounced plans to open a factory in the Southwest.
A high-ranking Chinese official, Wu Bangguo, chairman of theStanding Committee of the National People’s Congress of China, attendedthe signing of the First Solar agreement in Arizona on Tuesday. Thememorandum of understanding is just the first step in what is likely tobe a long and complicated process to build such a gargantuan solarpower plant in a country with little experience in constructing suchprojects.
“The ability to predict solar energy yields off thesesystems to make accurate financial predictions isn’t in place yet inChina,” Mr. Ahearn said.
Plans for the Ordos renewable energy park call for wind farmsto generate 6,950 megawatts, photovoltaic power plants to provide 3,900megawatts and solar thermal farms to supply 720 megawatts. Biomassoperations, fueled by organic materials like wood chips and straw, willcontribute 310 megawatts; 70 megawatts will be available from hydrostorage, a load-balancing technology that uses off-peak power to pumpwater to a high reservoir from which it can be released to turnturbines at peak demand periods.
First Solar will have toestablish a supply chain to provide power inverters and other hardwareneeded for its part of the project as well as train Chinese contractorshow to build and operate solar farms. Another hurdle is that China mustupgrade its transmission system to connect the solar power plant to thegrid.
Mr. Ahearn said it was probable that a Chinese utility would ultimately own and run the 16,000-acre solar power plant.

The agreement calls for ground to be broken on the first 30-megawattphase of the project by June 1, 2010, followed by 100-megawatt and870-megawatt additions to be completed by the end of 2014. A final1,000-megawatt phase is scheduled to go online by Dec. 31, 2019.

渔音谦谦

Wrath

啊,今天有点晚了.明天如果没人认,我就要了