Alamosa Photovoltaic Power Plant, is a 7.7 MW_AC (8.2 MW_p)

photovoltaic power station A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system (PV system) designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building- ...

located in

San Luis Valley The San Luis Valley is a region in south-central Colorado with a small portion overlapping into New Mexico. The valley is approximately long and wide, extending from the Continental Divide on the northwest rim into New Mexico on the south. It co ...

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

. The facility was the largest in the United States to service a major public utility when its activation was announced on December 17, 2007. It was the second largest plant after the U.S. Air Force's

Nellis Solar Power Plant The Nellis Solar Power Plant is a 14-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic power station located within Nellis Air Force Base in Clark County, Nevada, northeast of Las Vegas. The power plant was inaugurated in a ceremony on December 17, 2007, with N ...

which was inaugurated the same day. The electricity is being sold to Public Service of Colorado, a subsidiary of

Xcel Energy Xcel Energy Inc. is an American utility holding company based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, serving more than 3.7 million electric customers and 2.1 million natural gas customers in Colorado, Texas, and New Mexico in 2019. It consists of four oper ...

, under a 20-year

power purchase agreement A power purchase agreement (PPA), or electricity power agreement, is a contract between two parties, one which generates electricity (the seller) and one which is looking to purchase electricity (the buyer). The PPA defines all of the commercial te ...

Facility details

The plant occupies 82 acres of a 160 acre parcel of land adjacent to Highway 17 and existing transmission infrastructure near the community of Mosca. It was originally constructed as three units to evaluate and demonstrate three types of

photovoltaic Photovoltaics (PV) is the conversion of light into electricity using semiconducting materials that exhibit the photovoltaic effect, a phenomenon studied in physics, photochemistry, and electrochemistry. The photovoltaic effect is commercially us ...

(PV) technology at utility-scale, including: 1) fixed-tilt, seasonally-adjustable, flat-panel PV; 2) single-axis-

tracking Tracking may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Tracking, in computer graphics, in match moving (insertion of graphics into footage) * Tracking, composing music with music tracker software * Eye tracking, measuring the position of t ...

, flat-panel PV; and 3) dual-axis-tracking,

concentrator photovoltaics Concentrator photovoltaics (CPV) (also known as concentration photovoltaics) is a photovoltaic technology that generates electricity from sunlight. Unlike conventional photovoltaic systems, it uses lenses or curved mirrors to focus sunlight onto ...

(CPV). The first two units account for about 6.8 MW of the plant capacity and use 2,224 and 24,384 Suntech

polycrystalline silicon Polycrystalline silicon, or multicrystalline silicon, also called polysilicon, poly-Si, or mc-Si, is a high purity, polycrystalline form of silicon, used as a raw material by the solar photovoltaic and electronics industry. Polysilicon is produ ...

panels, respectively. The third unit accounts for the remaining ~1.2 MW and consists of 72 SOLON Mover tracker systems with concentrating solar panels. The plant was developed, financed, constructed, owned, and operated by

SunEdison SunEdison, Inc. (formerly MEMC Electronic Materials) is a renewable energy company headquartered in the U.S. In addition to developing, building, owning, and operating solar power plants and wind energy plants, it also manufactures high purity po ...

. Construction began in April 2007, and the facility was generating full power by the end of the year. It continued as the most productive public-utility-connected PV power plant until the end of 2008, when the

El Dorado Solar Power Plant The El Dorado Solar Power Plant is a 10 megawatt (MW AC) photovoltaic power plant located near Boulder City, Nevada and completed in December 2008. It was built by First Solar as a demonstration plant for Sempra Generation, and is now part ...

in Nevada came online. It provided enough power to supply 1400 homes that year. In January 2015, the plant was purchased by TerraForm Power, which was created as a

yield co A yield co or yieldco is a company that is formed to own operating assets that produce a predictable cash flow, primarily through long term contracts. Separating volatile activities (such as development, R&D, construction) from stable activities of ...

by SunEdison prior to its bankruptcy filing the following year. The plant received some criticism upon startup, saying that the amount of land used is large in comparison to the amount of power generated.

Electricity production

References

{{Solar power in the United States Buildings and structures in Alamosa County, Colorado Photovoltaic power stations in Colorado Photovoltaic power stations in the United States Energy infrastructure completed in 2007

Facility details

Electricity production

See also

References