New West Energy Grok

New Solar Plant for Ft. Collins

By Richard Martin, 9-07-07

Capitalizing on the growing market for electricity from advanced solar technology, a Fort Collins startup plans to open a factory to make so-called “thin-film” solar panels that could produce power at costs close to those of conventional fossil-fuel plants. Spun off from research by CSU mechanical engineering professor W.S. Sampath, AVA Solar Inc. could create up to 500 jobs – the largest new employer in the area in two decades according to local officials.

AVA Solar is backed, says Sampath, by “tens of millions” of dollars in venture funding plus a $3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Initiative.

Thin-film solar panels are one of two promising technologies that could overcome the large price difference between solar and conventional energy; the other is wide-scale arrays of mirrors and lenses known as “solar concentrators” that magnify the sun’s intensity and thus the efficiency of solar plants. Those technologies were on display yesterday at a major East Coast gathering of solar industry startups and prospective investors, the Cowen and Company’s Clean Tech Conference.

“Demand in the near term is not a big concern,” said Jens Meyerhoff, chief financial officer of First Solar Inc., which is also pushing thin-film technology. But some form of government subsidy is still required to bring the nascent industry into price parity with coal, natural gas and other existing forms of energy production, solar-industry officials agree.

In other energy news:

-- The 1st Stop convenience store on Ken Pratt Blvd. in Longmont welcomed a new “E85” pump this week that delivers a blend of 85% corn-based ethanol and 15% petroleum. Part of the state Energy Office’s campaign to have 50 working E85 pumps across Colorado by the end of the year, the 1st Stop outlet is number 35 so far.

-- Boulder County commissioners this week approved a proposal from the Platte River Power Authority to install upgraded power lines through Longmont, a controversial project that will cost $50 million and include both above-ground and buried lines across 21.4 miles. The Commission had sought unsuccessfully to require all of the new lines to be underground; less than two miles of the new system runs through the unincorporated Boulder County.

-- Undeterred in its years-long effort to build a rail spur in the scenic Yampa River Valley from the Union Pacific railway to the Hayden Station power plant, Xcel Energy has once again applied for approval to get the new line built. Right now coal must be delivered by trucks from the Twentymile coal mine, and Xcel has been trying for four years to get a two-mile rail spur built in the face of opposition from local residents and environmental organizations. The Routt County Planning Commission is expected to vote on the proposal in the next few weeks.

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