Photo Credit: Image Credit: Fernando Tomás
Last month, at the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced the groundbreaking of the world’s first solar-geothermal power plant in Churchill County, Nevada. Enel Green Power will develop the Stillwater solar facility, installing more than 81,000 PV modules to generate an additional 24 megawatts-ac of peak energy at the existing geothermal plant. Adding solar capacity at the current Stillwater facility will not only improve the plant’s electrical production, but will also allow use of the existing infrastructure and reduce the environmental impact of the project. The solar retrofit, which is supported by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, will be an important test run for future projects combining renewable energy sources. Power from the project will be sold to NV Energy upon completion in 2012.