Chevron project tests solar technologies
| Monday, Mar 22 2010 05:17 PM
Last Updated Monday, Mar 22 2010 05:17 PM
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Cheron unveils solar energy demonstration project on a former refinery. Chevron installed 8 acres of solar technology, enough to power 30 to 40 pumps and 150 homes.
Chevron executives unveiled solar energy demonstration project on a former refinery to media, community leaders, solar energy companies and politicians on Monday morning. Chevron looked at 180 solar energy providers and choose one benchmark and seven other emerging technologies to test on their site.
Roger Christy, a Chevron employee in the San Joaquin Valley Business Unit, looks over several different types of solar panels. Chevron unveiled solar energy demonstration project on a former refinery on Monday morning. Chevron looked at 180 solar energy providers and choose one benchmark and seven other emerging technologies to test on their site.
With so many executives and dignitaries on the guest list, Chevron might have taken some time over the weekend to wipe down solar panels that were the subject of a big company event Monday on the dusty site of a former Oildale refinery. But no.
A thin coating of light brown soil covered row after row of pricey solar panels as company staff gave tours to members of Kern's political and business communities.
The dirt, Chevron people felt obliged to point out, was no oversight. Nor will it be cleaned off anytime soon. It's supposed to be there.
The Brightfield Solar Demonstration Chevron unveiled Monday is a test of promising new photovoltaic technologies. It's also a competition among seven solar panel manufacturers.
Over a period of at least three years, panels from each of the seven manufacturers are to withstand the same conditions -- heat, wind, fog and dust -- with no maintenance or human intervention.
How well each set of panels performs is to be measured against a default set of conventional solar panels. Chevron plans to pair the data with readings from an adjacent weather station and share the information separately with each manufacturer.
Whichever panel-maker performs best in terms of price, efficiency, ease of installation and durability could get a contract to outfit future Chevron solar fields.
"This is going to be, for some of them, their first really live" demonstration project, said the vice president of emerging energy for Chevron Technology Ventures, Jerry Lomax.
Brightfield is the largest side-by-side solar demonstration in the country, according to Chevron. It is one of three places where the company has essentially recycled a facility for use in generating renewable power.
The project is the latest renewable energy demonstration to come to Kern. Other cutting-edge technologies being tested in the county or proposed here range from biogas to wind power to hydrogen energy.
Originally Chevron talked with some 180 manufacturers last summer about getting some of their solar panels on the 8-acre Oildale site off East Norris Road. Chevron selected the companies it considers the most hopeful in terms of their products' electricity generation and cost. These were Abound Solar, Innovalight, MiaSolé, Schüco, Solar Frontier, Sharp and Solibro.
Taken together, solar panels at the site generate 740 kilowatts of energy, enough to power motors on 30 to 40 of the 9,000 oil wells Chevron operates in the area. Company officials said some of that power could be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to supply homes and businesses.
The top executive of one of the solar manufacturers represented Monday, Innovalight President and CEO Conrad Burke, expressed confidence that his company's technology would outperform the others. The Sunnyvale-based company "prints" silicon ink onto solar panels, which Burke said reduces costs and increases output.
Chevron said it covered some of the other manufacturers' costs. But Innovalight donated a relatively small solar array and let the oil company pay for installation.
We're absolutely thrilled with this," Burke said. "Chevron's been a great partner."
