Arizona Solar Fields

I wrote a story about a year or so ago called “The Arizona Solar Fields.” I said that the wind turbines near Palm Springs were pretty cool and unmistakable at that Arizona had a unique opportunity to turn land off the interstates into something similar, but instead of miles of wind turbines, Arizona should have solar cells.(The story is forever lost since the only copy I had of it was on my external hard drive and unfortunately it crashed and burned and lost all my data.)

Point being, I was onto something. And my vision is becoming a reality.

President Obama announced this week that the worlds largest solar plant is being built off I-8 near Gila Bend. The Solana solar facility will get $1.45 billion federal loan guarantee. (Solana means “sunny place” in Spanish and Gila Bend and Arizona certainly are sunny places.)

The facility will supply power to about 70,000 homes and will off set 475,000 tons of greenhouse gases. The 280-megawatt Solana Generating Station will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to store the energy for later use-even at night. The power generated will connect to an APS substation in Gila Bend and be transmitted through existing power lines.

Now before anyone jumps in and says solar doesn’t work or that it’s too expensive or whatever else lame excuse people can think of, remember this: I have solar cells on my roof. I know from my own experiences that solar power works. My bill to APS in June was about $30 because the solar cells on my roof produced most of the electricity I used for that month; APS bought it from me.

It’s about damn time Arizona starts building solar power plants! With over 300 days of sunshine, Arizona should be the solar capital of the country and we should be exploiting our number one natural, renewable resource to our benefit.

Big thank you to Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for making this project and all the new jobs and technology it will bring to Arizona a reality.

Share on Facebook