On a blustery and brilliantly sunny Texas winter day a couple hundred Central Texas citizens, that included officials and solar enthusiasts, gathered on what had been an empty 380 acre field only three years ago to usher in a new era of “drought-proof” energy for the City of Austin.
Former Austin Mayor Will Wynn, PUC Commissioner Rolando Pablos, Austin Councilmember Bill Spelman, Travis County Commissioner Ron Davis, Webberville Mayor Hector Gonzales, Austin Energy General Manager Larry Weis, Austin Councilmember Chris Riley, Austin Mayor Lee Leffingwell and Mark Mendenhall of SunEdison.
On Friday, January 6, 2012, Austin Energy held a grand opening ceremony for their new Webberville Solar Project, the largest facility in Texas and among the largest in the nation with 127,728 ground mounted solar panels that rotate with the sun and will generate 30 megawatts (MW) of electricity – enough to power 5,000 homes annually.
A number of years ago, the City of Austin purchased this land planning to install a new coal-fired power plant. When those plans fell through, a landfill was proposed for the site that now boasts 280 acres of solar panels with a view of downtown Austin along its horizon.
Public Citizen says kudos to the City of Austin and Austin Energy for their vision and efforts in completing this project. Given that the State Climatologist is warning us that Texas can expect up to 5 more years of the current drought cycle, this project came just in time to help provide our community with drought–proof electricity during the peak use times – that will come in handy next summer.
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Can you discuss reasonable estimates of the electricity production of the solar system compared to the probable production of the coal-fired plant and the relative 20-year present worth of these tow options?
Austin and LCRA just had to do the first of many upgrades to clean up their coal plant to be able to keep it running. They spent 400 million dollars on scrubbers for two of the units, just the first of several upgrades that will be needed.
Also almost all the productive pecan orchards (some almost 100 years old) in the area of the coal plant have died from the emissions.
The Statesman has recent articles of the impacts to the local community including contamination and even suicides from the emissions destruction of the local farms. The local air quality board has estimated thousands of early deaths and hospital visits because of the emissions from the coal plant. How do you put a price on that ?
Part of the equation for new coal-fired plants in Texas revolves around the water intensiveness of this type of generation. Currently, at least one proposed coal plant in South Texas has not been able to secure a “firm water” contract with LCRA who is now looking at the impacts of last summer’s drought and the projected extended drought predicted by the state climatologist.
Other cost considerations for coal plants will depend upon implementation of new rules at the EPA (including the mercury air quality rules and the cross-state air pollution rules), but the cost of solar continues to come down making them more competitive with traditional forms of generation.
The upside of solar is that it provides PEAK energy, so when we all go home and turn the temperature down on our air conditioners, this solar project will be there helping to keep our ACs running.
Thanks to everyone for coming out and celebrating 127,000+ panels of hope for a clean energy future for Austin, Travis County, Texas and beyond. It was terrific to share this event with you!
This is a banner day …. I’m so grateful to see Austin taking steps to get out of “hot water” energy.