Green Options

The US Treasury gave another $550 million in stimulus funds for renewable energy this week. This brings the total to over $1 billion.

A solar photovoltaic station tucked away high in a high Colorado mountain valley will finish 2008 as the nation’s most productive utility-scale solar PV facility, but the short-lived title won’t last long.

At 7,500 feet above sea level, Sun Edison’s 8.22-megawatt Alamosa facility was America’s most efficient solar plant in 2008. The 82-acre solar photovoltaic facility in the San Luis Valley of Colorado produced enough power for 1,652 homes, making it the largest plant of its kind in the country. And if you think 1,650 homes isn’t very many, you’ve never been to the sparsely-populated San Luis Valley.

The project, which just opened in December of 2007, will be surpassed in terms of total output by the recently-completed ten-megawatt El Dorado Energy Solar facility in southern Nevada.