{"id":36816,"date":"2014-05-19T09:34:55","date_gmt":"2014-05-19T14:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=36816"},"modified":"2014-05-19T09:34:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-19T14:34:55","slug":"largest-single-solar-plant-in-the-state-planned-for-west-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/05\/19\/largest-single-solar-plant-in-the-state-planned-for-west-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Largest Single Solar Plant in the State Planned for West Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h4>\n
\"A<\/a>

Photo by John Moore\/Getty Images<\/p>

A worker walks amid a field of solar panels atop an Ikea home furnishings store on July 26, 2011 in Centennial, Colorado.<\/p><\/div>\n

From KRTS Marfa Public Radio:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n

A California company has\u00a0won a contract<\/a>\u00a0to build a 150-megawatt solar plant in West Texas. It would be the largest single plant built in the state so far, second only to the\u00a0400 mw system of plants<\/a>\u00a0planned for San Antonio.<\/p>\n

San Francisco-based\u00a0Recurrent Energy<\/a>\u00a0isn\u2019t saying where exactly it will build the plant. CEO Arno Harris says they\u2019re keeping that information private for now to keep the project competitive as other companies\u00a0look to the West Texas skies<\/a>\u00a0for profits.<\/p>\n

Harris tells KRTS that rising natural gas prices and dropping costs are making it easier for the solar industry to move to Texas \u2013 utility companies are buying more solar, seeing it as an increasingly competitive energy source.<\/p>\n

Recurrent Energy has secured a 20-year contract with\u00a0Austin Energy<\/a>\u00a0to bring power to an estimated 15,000 homes in the capital city. The utility\u00a0estimates<\/a>\u00a01 mw of solar power can power about 100 Texas homes during peak hours on summer days.<\/p>\n

Arno Harris predicts the state will see more large-scale solar plants in the future, as companies increasingly compete to get their hands on what he calls \u201cbigger and bigger chunks\u201d of the market.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Arizona-based First Solar broke ground on the\u00a0first part of the Barilla Solar Project<\/a>\u00a0– a 22 mw plant located near Fort Stockton in Pecos County.<\/p>\n

First Solar also has plans to build near Paisano Pass in Presidio County, and another California-based company called Sun Power is moving forward with a 50 mw plant near Marfa.<\/p>\n

After some concerns from local residents, Sun Power agreed to move its proposed site further away from town. Both companies were recently\u00a0awarded tax breaks<\/a>\u00a0from the county and\u00a0Marfa ISD.<\/a><\/p>\n

Looking ahead at solar power in Texas, the state comptroller\u2019s office says counties that have offered the \u201cmost favorable\u201d incentive programs to solar companies\u00a0have seen the fastest innovation and growth<\/a>\u00a0in the industry.<\/p>\n

Still, Presidio County Judge Paul Hunt has repeatedly expressed his dismay at local tax breaks, saying\u00a0that because of a change in how the state appraises solar properties, the two companies looking to build in this corner of West Texas are now getting \u201ca pretty sweetheart deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before\u00a0HB 2500<\/a>\u00a0took effect in January, those property values dropped each year over a few decades \u2013 now, they drop faster over ten years.<\/p>\n

Last year, President Obama called on the country to double its use of renewable energy by 2020 as part of his administration\u2019s\u00a0Climate Action Plan,<\/a>\u00a0but solar power still only accounts for just\u00a0a fraction of 1%<\/a>\u00a0of the nation\u2019s overall energy production.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KRTS Marfa Public Radio: A California company has\u00a0won a contract\u00a0to build a 150-megawatt solar plant in West Texas. It would be the largest single plant built in the state so far, second only to the\u00a0400 mw system of plants\u00a0planned for San Antonio. San Francisco-based\u00a0Recurrent Energy\u00a0isn\u2019t saying where exactly it will build the plant. CEO […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[16,32],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36816"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36818,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36816\/revisions\/36818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}