Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Going solar

Noted: San Antonio now has the largest solar farm in Texas.
The Blue Wing Solar project went on-line Nov. 4. An official ribbon cutting will take place on Nov. 9.

Sen. John Cornyn, U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez and San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro were among those who joined Duke Energy, CPS Energy and Juwi Solar Inc. dignitaries for the ceremony.

The solar farm, which is located near Interstate 37 and U.S. Highway 181 on the far Southeast side of the city, is the largest solar farm in Texas.
(from KSAT-12)

Note: Solar power is horribly inefficient, and you'll pay more to feel green. We all will.
The project is part of CPS Energy's 2020 vision, which calls for 20 percent of its power to come from clean renewable energy resources by 2020.

"That means there's less emissions we put into the air and less pollution," said CPS Energy President & CEO Doyle Beneby.

However, Beneby added, solar energy is 2 to 3 times more expensive than traditional sources. The drawback may be a slight increase in monthly energy bills for CPS Energy customers. Beneby estimated it will only add up to a few cents extra per month on the average bill.

"Hopefully, it's going to be somewhat unnoticeable, but we are very cost conscious. We have the lowest rates of any major city and even with the addition of solar to our portfolio, we're going to keep it that way," said Beneby. [emphases added]
This project will provide power to about 1,800 homes per year. There are over 400,000 households in San Antonio. The green effect is negligible.

2 comments:

Sabra said...

I was questioning that when I heard it yesterday. I didn't know the number of households we have in the metro area, but "one heck of a lot more than 1800" is kind of a given. That's, what, a subdivision or two (if we're lucky)?

libraaztec said...

Those solar panels popped up like popcorn.