Stirling Energy and Tessera have built Maricopa Solar, a 1.5MW solar project in Peoria, Ariz. (Maricopa County) that will use 60 SunCatchers to sell clean power to local Arizona utility Salt River Project. The ribbon-cutting event is supposed to feature Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer and Department of Energy Solar Program Manager John Lushetsky.

This is just the first small project from the Stirling Energy crew, and the company says that later this year it will start construction of its two much larger solar plants in California — a potentially 900MW plant in Imperial County, Calif. for San Diego Gas & Electric, and a 850MW solar plant in San Bernardino County, Calif. for Southern California Edison.

Founded in 1996, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Stirling Energy has developed a 25 KW electric solar dish that focuses the sun rays directly onto a stirling engine. Stirling engines, which were invented centuries ago, can be more efficient and quieter than internal combustion engines and use a closed system of gases to generate power. Most solar thermal technologies, by contrast, concentrate the sun’s rays onto liquid, which powers a turbine.

Stirling isn’t the only company turning to stirling engines for solar power. One example is Infinia, which is backed by a gaggle of A-list Silicon Valley-ers, including Bill Gross’ Idealab and Paul Allen’s Vulcan Capital. Infinia’s technology is similar to Stirling’s and uses mirrored concentrator dishes to track the sun and reflect its rays into a highly efficient Stirling heat engine. Stirling Energy has raised $100 million from Dublin, Ireland’s NTR, which in the process took a 52-percent stake in the company, according to the Cleantech Group.

10). 11 Solar Thermal Companies Powering Up: A list of companies that are building massive solar plants in the deserts that use mirrors and lenses to concentrate the sun’s heat to power a steam turbine.

9). Earth2Tech’s Top 15 Smart Grid Influencers: One of my favorites of the year: a list of who I think are the most influential execs in the smart grid world.

8). 25 Who Ditched Infotech for Cleantech: A bunch of folks that made the successful transition from infotech to greentech.

7). Google Jumps Into Organizing Smart Meter Energy Data: Google’s PowerMeter shook up the utility and energy landscapes in 2009 — now we’ll see if they can gain traction with the tool in 2010.

6). Bloom Energy: “Close” to Unveiling Its Fuel Cell: Ah, Bloom. Everyone wants to know what’s going on with you.

5). 11 Companies Racing to Build U.S. Cellulosic Plants: Most of these companies that were rushing to build cellulosic ethanol plants in 2008, are still toiling over them in 2009 — and will continue in 2010.

4). FAQ: Thin-Film Solar: It’s thin, it’s commonly not made of silicon, and it’s the future of the solar photovoltaic industry.

3). FAQ: Smart Grid: 2009 was the year of the smart grid, and here’s a primer on what you need to know.

2). 10 Monitoring Tools Bringing Smart Energy Home: Given this market is so new, here’s a handy-dandy list of the tools already out there.

1). 15 Algae Startups Bringing Pond Scum To Fuel Tanks: Thanks algae fuel — you’re the list that keeps on giving.

Image courtesy of legalnonresident’s Flickr Creative Commons.

Spain is often held up as the role model for renewable energy development. The Spanish government has been generous with subsidies for clean power in the form of grants and direct low-interest loans — $1.6 billion for the solar industry alone in 2008. The result has been that it’s basically subsidized companies’ losses and the true costs of renewable energy development has not been passed on to the consumer. Now the Spanish government is warning that its clean power policies could result in significant end user cost increases for electricity — for many years to come.

Spain’s Clean Power Folly

Gabriel Calzada, a Spanish economist and critic of the government’s approach to the solar market, notes that for each job his country’s alternative energy sector has created the cost to the Spanish government was $855,000. While hundreds of jobs were created during the construction phase of these alternative energy projects, few of them were permanent. Even more discouraging, according to Calzada, for every “green job” created in Spain, 2.2 jobs in other sectors were lost.

Spain’s subsidies and low-interest loans, which climbed to $1.6 billion in 2008 from $321 million in 2007, resulted in an explosion in solar panel manufacturing. But as the global recession hit and solar purchases took a dive, the Spanish government sought to reel in overcapacity and the market collapsed, resulting in thousands of job losses (and an unemployment rate of as high 18 percent) as the government –- and taxpayers -– no longer footed the bill.

Spain’s approach to renewable energy development was fundamentally flawed. And California, if it’s not careful, could find itself repeating Spain’s mistakes.

California Following in Spain’s Footsteps?

Here in California, according to the 2006 law AB32, investor-owned utilities are required to deliver 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. That’s a target the utilities will certainly miss because only 13 percent of the power delivered today is considered renewable, according to figures made public by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Even that agency is saying it will likely be 2014 before the 20 percent target is met. AB32 also created the regulatory framework by which the California Air Resources Board (CARB) could mandate that 33 percent of that power has to come from renewable sources by 2020, a mandate which Governor Schwarzenegger authorized by executive order last month.

Meanwhile, over in the Assembly, state senator Joe Simitian came out with a bill titled SB 14, which would require investor-owned utilities in California to not only deliver 33 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020 but also require them to produce it in California. This would pose a real problem, however, as California doesn’t actually produce much power, but rather pipes it in from other western states and the Canadian province of British Columbia.

While the governor has announced that he plans to veto SB 14, the details of its proposal are worth noting. It attempts to force utilities to abandon existing sources of clean energy (California uses a lot of hydroelectric power) and replace it with new clean power generation that would have to be built within the state. According to utilities, the cost for complying with SB 14 on top of existing state mandates would exceed $115 billion by 2020.

To put that in perspective, PG&E, SDG&E, and Southern California Edison combined sell about $25 billion in energy (gas and electric) each year. In other words, Californians would see a sobering increase to their utility bills.

Don’t Go There

This micromanagement of the electricity marketplace is in essence an attempt at centralized economic planning, and would have dire consequences for the state. Simitian’s approach would foist significant costs on the consumer in the name of job creation.

But when power gets expensive, industries leave. It’s no secret that Google and Microsoft have been building out their massive data centers not in California but in the Northwest, where power is cheap. Over 25 percent of California’s manufacturing jobs — 35 percent of all high-tech manufacturing jobs — have left the state since 2000, according to a report prepared by the Milken Institute, to the benefit of neighboring states Arizona, Nevada and Texas.

The future of California is inextricably linked to Californians having jobs, but if the Legislature gets its way every job created in alternative energy will be accompanied by an exodus of jobs in other industries. While Spain’s policies have caught the attention of the world’s clean power industries and make for exciting reading material, California would be very unwise to follow that country’s lead.

Jeff Nolan is a former enterprise software venture capitalist and media/advertising executive who blogs at Jeffnolan.com.

The parts of the solar projects that took a lot of innovation and required a great deal of funds are actually going quite well for BrightSource. The company raised over $115 million ($160 million total) from a long list of investors including Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Venture, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Chevron Technology Ventures. And the company has closed deals in the gigawatt range with two of California’s largest utilities: Southern California Edison and PG&E

But despite all BrightSource’s work, the company is now facing a holding pattern, waiting for the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management to move forward on permitting and siting of its solar projects. BrightSource’s solar farm in Southern California, near the Nevada border, to the west of Ivanpah Dry Lake, is one of the first in the queue that the CEC and BLM are currently reviewing. “We’re in year two of [what was anticipated would be] a one year project,” said Woolard.

Other solar firms like eSolar are building solar projects on private land, focusing on bypassing public lands that need permits from the CEC and BLM, and using the organizations’ slow-moving process as a competitive edge. Last week eSolar flipped the switch on a small solar project in Lancaster, Calif., that they were able to call “the first solar thermal power tower plant in the U.S.” BrightSource also uses a solar power tower design for its solar projects.

The BLM in particular is aware of the problem, and was so overwhelmed with the number of solar applications that it tried to put a freeze on accepting new applications for solar companies earlier this year, only to reverse the decision shortly after in the face of opposition. The BLM is now working on fast tracking permitting for certain land areas in western regions called the Solar Energy Study Areas, as well as working with states to fast track certain applications.

For solar companies that need to site and get permits for transmission lines, that can add more time, and more oversight from a variety of organizations, like the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). It’s such a big problem that Senate Majority leader Harry Reid said at the Las Vegas conference that he wouldn’t support a climate bill (currently making its way through the Senate) that did not work out a better, more streamlined system for permitting transmission lines. BrightSource will already have access to transmission lines at its Ivanpah site, so at least it doesn’t have to wait for that.

BrightSource hopes that its project will be approved by early 2010. And the company is optimistic that after its project’s approval, the permitting process will likely speed up for other companies’ projects that are in line behind it. “It’s a learning curve for everyone,” said Keely Wachs, BrightSource’s spokesperson.

While everyone is learning, time is a crucial issue. Utilities need to meet state renewable energy portfolio standards by certain dates and the need to move quickly on fighting climate change is clear. Woolard told the audience and panel of policymakers at the Las Vegas event that what he and the solar industry really need right now is “roll-up-your-sleeves leadership” to help speed up these basic “boring” processes. Until that happens these types of solar projects are at risk of drowning in the boring and bureaucratic.

Lest our imaginations run wild, let’s look at the hard facts. As we’ve noted before, clean technology investment hit a record $3.3 billion last year. According to the Next 10 report, the California Green Innovation Index, California registered more patents for clean technologies than any other state from 2002 to 2007. Grid-connected solar capacity grew by 41 percent from 2006 to 2007, contributing to a green jobs-creation rate that’s increasing 10 times faster than total job growth. (Data from 2008, when more than 10 solar thermal companies geared up for major projects in the Mojave Desert, might show even more growth.)

Another factor in the creation of 1.5 million jobs: California residents and companies with lower energy bills had cash to spend on other things.

Given that President Barack Obama’s plan for reviving the U.S. economy centers on a Green New Deal, California’s numbers would appear to make it a model for the nation. Crucially, the state’s GDP has continued to grow while per-capita emissions have gone down (total emissions, while rising, have slowed in recent years).

But California has some of its own catching up to do — especially when it comes to fuel economy. According to Next 10, the state has more alt-fuel vehicle registrations than any other state, and the Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento metropolitan areas rank among the top ten markets for hybrids. Yet behind all those shiny new cars are highways choked with gas guzzlers: The most recent data shows California’s average fuel economy (19.9 mpg) lagging behind the U.S. as a whole (20.1 mpg). President Obama’s push for the EPA to let California enforce tighter fuel economy standards, then, couldn’t have come too soon.

On the one hand, companies needing capital may be stretched, silicon may be expensive and prices for solar panels may fall. On the other hand, solar power may be a beneficiary of state and federal fiscal stimulus plans.

In that respect it was very encouraging to solar bulls that SunPower’s third quarter numbers, released Thursday, were strong. The $377.5 million revenue in the quarter was above analysts estimates of $350.4 million, and the 60 cents a share net profit was above the estimated 56 cents.

And while the company’s guidance for the current quarter is in line with the Street’s estimates, SunPower sees 2009 being a moderately strong year. It forecasts its revenue next year to be between $2.05 billion and $2.15 billion (versus the Street’s $2.06 billion) and earnings of at least $3.50 a share (versus the consensus $3.67 a share).

SunPower CEO Tom Werner said in a statement,

“Due to strong industry fundamentals, continued execution of our vertical integration strategy, expected gross margin expansion, and our progress on our cost reduction programs, we will materially meet our target operating model in the fourth quarter. We are strategically well positioned for 2009 and remain on track to realize our mission of reducing installed systems cost by 50% from 2006 to 2012.”

Werner also said SunPower is “fully funded” to reach its goals and sees no need to raise new funds, even though risk spreads on solar industry financing have increased.

While far from a blowout performance, SunPower’s ability to show growth this year and confidence in the future was welcome news. The stock rallied 25 percent to $50.99 on Thursday. But it’s not clear how much that rally means: It simply retraces the 25 percent decline the stock suffered in the previous two days.

Claiming the world’s best performing, lowest-cost utility solar system is a bold statement, especially considering there’s so many competing solar thermal companies out there right now (see our list 11 Solar Thermal Companies Powering Up). In fact SkyFuel is making a lot of strong statements, trying to make a splash; they have been much quieter than many of their competitors up to this point. SkyFuel also says that its system “features the largest parabolic trough modules ever built,” at 375 feet long and 20 feet tall, and the company’s aluminum frame makes the system “30 percent lighter per unit of mirror area than even the best of the previous utility-scale parabolic collectors.”

At the launch event in Colorado, the state’s governor Bill Ritter called SkyFuel an “example of how Colorado is building a new energy economy and becoming a national and international leader in renewable energy.” All the states are touting their green companies and green jobs. Yesterday California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger dedicated a solar parking lot at Applied Materials’campus in Sunnyvale, California. Schwarzenegger said: “We are all going through tough economic times, and this is exactly why I am talking about investing in clean, green technology. It’s one of the best investments out there, and it’s where the innovation and job growth will be.”

SkyFuel’s R&D facility is in Arvada, Colo., but its headquarters are in Albuquerque, N.M. — the company developed its technology in part with a grant from New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardon’s Energy Innovation Fund, as well as a $17 million Series B round led by Leaf Clean Energy Co., announced last April.

As we said in our report on the company earlier this month, SkyFuel seems to be one of the most realistic and business-savvy of the solar thermal bunch. Their idea is to keep costs low and supply customers with a cheaper version of a tried and true technology, while working to perfect a next-generation technology. The company doesn’t have plans to build factories to produce its own equipment, and plans to partner with power-plant builders and utilities, instead of building its own power plants. SkyFuel’s V-P of business development, Christopher Huntington, told us the company doesn’t want to compete with the power plant builders but position itself more like Intel, “…with “Intel Inside” powering the technology.”

Images courtesy of SkyFuel.

The funding will be used to expand manufacturing and marketing for its inverters, charge controllers and display devices for solar arrays. Apollo didn’t disclose which investors participated in the offering, but we’ve got a call in to the company and will update when we find out more.

Distributed solar energy could be a significant energy resource as new power-generating technologies hit the market and prices drop. But connecting those resources to the grid in a way that helps utilities make use of them requires better, smarter components. That means inverters and the other electronic components that tie solar panels into our electrical wires and networks are gaining importance and investor interest.

The Department of Energy has dedicated $24 million to its Solar Energy Grid Integration Program (SEGIS), which aims to develop low-cost “balance of system” technologies, increase energy harvest from solar panel systems, improve system reliability and ultimately enable greater grid penetration of distributed solar energy resources.

In a first round of funding totaling $2.9 million announced in August, DOE selected 12 vendors, including Apollo Solar, for cost-sharing partnerships aimed at market analysis and component design. Apollo received support to develop components for residential-size solar electric systems “able to communicate with utility energy portals to implement the seamless two-way power flows of the future,” according to a DOE release.

Other participants, including EnPhase, PVPowered, SmartSpark, GE and Premium Power, are tasked with developing components for other smart-grid-plus-solar technologies — including back-up power systems, plug-in hybrids and traditional building energy management systems. Meanwhile, Xantrex Technology, another company in the inverter space, was acquired in late September for $500 million by French company Schneider Electric. Apollo’s announcement today seems like just the start of what is likely to be a much longer line of investments ahead.

The company says the funds will partly go towards completing its first solar power plant in the U.S., a 5 MW project called Kimberlina near Bakersfield, Calif., which will use Ausra’s linear Fresnel concentrator technology. The company is also working on a 177 MW solar project for PG&E in central California.

Ausra is just one of more than a dozen companies building solar plants in the deserts that use the sun’s heat to generate power; the plantsuse mirrors and lenses to concentrate sunlight to heat tubes of liquid and power steam turbines. Startup SkyFuel is also working on Linear Fresnel technology, but plans to use heated molten salt, while Ausra says it plans to work with heated water.

In fact a report from CNET had pegged the round at closer to the $100-$150 million range. Perhaps the company has dialed back on its funding plans in the face of an uncertain investment tax credit? The CNET report also said that the company would need two project financings next year and that it planned to go public by 2010.

This latest round of funding included a new backer, private equity firm KERN Partners, as well as existing investors Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins. KERN invests in a lot of Canadian firms, so might Ausra be looking at solar markets up North? We’ve contacted the company and are waiting to hear back.

Ausra is just one of more than a dozen companies building solar plants in the deserts that use the sun’s heat to generate power. Ausra manufactures cheap, flat mirrors that incorporate what its calls Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology, which concentrates light to heat tubes of water and power steam turbines. The startup has a manufacturing facility near Las Vegas and has signed a power purchase agreement with PG&E for 177 MW from its farm in San Luis Obispo County, Calif.

CleanBreak isn’t surprised by the possibility of an acquisition, calling Xantrex “a success story that investors didn’t fully appreciate.” The company reported C$62 million in revenue in the first quarter, a 55 percent increase over the same period the year before. Xantrex is scheduled to report its second-quarter results at the end of the month.

Xantrex has recently inked $7.3 million worth of supply agreements. Just last week, it signed a deal to provide its inverters to solar energy provider Sun Edison over the next year that it says is worth some $5 million. Xantrex will also be supplying the mysterious and cash-laden OptiSolar with $1.9 million of inverters for that solar company’s planned 50-megawatt solar farm in Sarnia, Ontario, by the end of year.

The inverter is a weak link in a solar power system. While solar panels can last upwards of 20 years, the lifespan of inverters can hover around 10 years. But Xantrex isn’t alone in going after the power electronics market segment of solar. Enphase Energy raised $6.5 million at the start of the year and last month started selling its solar inverters. 1-Solar, a winner in last year’s California Clean Tech Open, specializes in solar inverters and the CEO and founder Tranh Nguyen told us back in February that he had a $5 million Series A round in the works and a $72 million sales deal lined up with a southern Californian customer.

Parabolic Troughs For the U.S.: Abengoa Solar is planning to only use older parabolic trough technology for its U.S. solar deals — at least for now. The policy framework and utility contract needs of the U.S. market require that the solar thermal technology be “proven,” “bankable” and “reliable,” Morse explains, and with the older technology there is the benefit of knowing not only that it works, but for how long it will last and at what cost.

That’s not to say that Abengoa isn’t also working with more cutting-edge solar thermal technology, like that of Linear Fresnel (used by Ausra). And Abengoa Solar is currently building a solar power plant using Power Tower technology in Sevilla. Because Spain doesn’t use utility contracts and has feed-in-tariff incentives, the Power Tower tech can be financed more easily, says Morse.

Fastrack for Solar Applications: On the subject of the Bureau of Land management’s recent solar application freeze and subsequent unfreeze, Morse suggests that the Bureau could process applications more effectively and efficiently by fastracking solar projects with deadlines. Those with impending deadlines could “move to the head of the line,” says Morse.

No ITC, No Arizona Solar Project: Abengoa Solar will not, Morse confirmed, build its planned solar power project, Solana, in Gila Bend, Az., unless the ITC is extended. Because the ITC extension is also getting down to the wire (by the end of this year) inaction is already causing delays in the plant’s construction and could cause difficulty in financing.

In fact Morse says the company is already moving slower on Solana because its waiting to see if the ITC will be renewed. The company is also worried that the longer they hold back on any construction steps because of the ITC, the more construction could cost. Solana requires 3 square miles of steel — another Golden Gate Bridge — says Morse, and in the meantime the price of steel keeps going up.

Being Big Has Its Advantages: Morse points out that compared to the other young startups in the solar thermal biz, Abengoa has decades of project financing experience and has an R&D budget of tens of millions of dollars. Between biofuels and solar, Morse said Abengoa spent over $50 million on R&D alone last year, which he estimates is bigger than the DOE’s entire R&D budget for solar thermal.

Goals for 2008: Getting the ITC passed is the first goal, says Morse. Then, assuming that happens soon, Morse says Abengoa Solar will focus on getting the permits and interconnection for the Solana plant. The company is also considering building a mirror factory somewhere in the U.S. Southwest.

The numbers are also notable in that overall venture investing has started to slow down, at least in the first quarter of this year. Yes, the first quarter tends to be cyclical, but venture investing overall in that quarter dropped 8.5 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2007, and was also down from the same quarter a year earlier. And not a single venture-backed company went public in the second quarter of this year, according to the National Venture Capital Association. Though whether that was partly cleantech’s fault is the subject of much debate.

So what drove growth in the second quarter? Solar thermal technology and second-generation biofuels, including cellulosic ethanol and algae-based biodiesel.

Solar thermal companies, like these 11 that are building big power plants in the desert, brought in $278 million in venture capital in the second quarter. That brings their year-to-date total to $543 million.

Algae-to-fuel companies (there’s also a lot of those, see these 15) raised $84 million for the quarter, including a $50 million round for Sapphire Energy, which the report says is “the single largest round ever raised by an algae company.” Cellulosic ethanol companies like Range Fuels, EdeniQ, Mascoma, and Gevo raised $136 million for the quarter (see these 11 companies building next-gen cellulosic ethanol plants).

The report also has our favorite list, which lays out the top VC cleantech investors and where their money is going:

1. Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers: 5 investments, Segway, Lehigh Technologies, Amyris Biotechnologies, Verdiem, Jiangxi Tianren Ecological Industry Co.
2. Foundation Capital: 4 investments, Control4, Silver Spring Networks, eMeter, SunRun
3. Quercus Trust: 4 investments, Firefly, Standard Renewable Energy, Sencera, Hydro Green Energy
4. Khosla Ventures: 4 investments, Amyris, Gevo, Firefly Energy, Range Fuels
5. Draper Fisher Jurvetson: 3 investments, Brightsource Energy, EdeniQ, GreenFuel Technologies

The request asks solar developers to submit proposals for a project that would use solar parabolic trough technology, would be built in New Mexico and use thermal storage. If the utility group likes any of the submissions it will try to negotiate a contract by the end of 2008 and potentially turn on the clean power for New Mexico customers by the end of 2011. Interested solar companies read more here.

The New Mexico utilities’ announcement comes in the same week that the Bureau of Land Management did an about face and decided to continue to accept solar project applications on public land. Previously the Bureau had called for a freeze on all new solar projects on public lands until an environmental assessment could be done. The Bureau of Land Management oversees land in New Mexico.

Dozens of companies are rushing to build solar thermal power plants, which use the sun’s heat to boil liquid and produce steam that powers a turbine, in U.S. deserts. Check out our list of solar thermal companies that will likely bid on New Mexico’s proposal. (11 Solar Thermal Companies Powering Up).

Photo courtesy of Solel.

Such an environmental analysis could take a good two years, which means new applications for solar projects on public lands could be out of luck for that period of time. While this would not effect the more than 130 solar proposals that have been filed with the Bureau since 2005, it could put a damper on startups and entrepreneurs that have been late on getting their paperwork in. The Times report quotes execs from Ausra and Solel on how the freeze is a disturbing setback.

On the other hand, other solar companies say that the moratorium on new applications will actually be a good way to streamline an inundated application process. Charles Ricker, senior vice president of marketing and business development for Oakland-based solar thermal company BrightSource, says that the “process is getting clogged,” and “there are just too many applications” filed right now.

BrightSource is in favor of the freeze in order to develop a better way to sort through the applications, Ricker says. The company is building plants on public lands and the freeze won’t jeopardize those plans, according to Ricker. BrightSource is one of the solar thermal industry’s leaders and has raised over $115 million from a long list of well known investors like Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Venture and Black River, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Morgan Stanley, DBL Investors, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Chevron Technology Ventures.

So it looks like solar companies’ perspective on the moratorium depends on how early and aggressive the company has already been with its application process. A rush of companies looking to capitalize on a booming market isn’t uncommon, just most of the time it’s market conditions that determine which companies will succeed and fail.

The Bureau’s decision would not only affect solar thermal projects on public lands, but also large solar photovoltaic plants on public lands. Martin Roscheisen, the CEO of thin-film solar company Nanosolar, says the public land freeze is an example of why his company favors a multitude of 1 to 10MW-sized municipal solar farms that blend more easily into the existing landscape and electric infrastructure and can be built on private lands.

Rocheisen says his company’s thin-film solar technology can enable such smaller plants on private lands like landfills, which could directly feed into municipal electric distribution as opposed to using transmission lines. Rocheisen contends that because solar thermal technology requires a huge amount of land, “not generally available in the U.S. other than through the government,” as well as transmission infrastructure and water resources, the technology might not be digestible to communities.

While both technologies will likely make up the future of the solar landscape, neither type of new solar project will get consideration until the U.S. Bureau of Land Management takes a thorough look at the eco-consequences.

FPL says that the 25 megawatt plant will be the largest photovoltaic plant in the world, just eking out the 21.5 megawatt plant SunEdison and Duke Energy claimed would be the largest last month. But neither are nearly as large as OptiSolar’s planned 550 megawatt photovoltaic plant. FPL says that these 110 megwatts, in addition to its subsidiary Beacon Solar’s plans for 250 megawatts of solar thermal power in California, make it the world’s largest producer of solar power.

FPL also claims to be the largest operator of wind energy in the country, a title it is battling with Spanish utility Iberdrola to keep. With so many gigantic wind and solar power projects in the pipeline we expect these superlatives to keep moving around.

While Florida does not have an official renewable portfolio standard the state’s Governor Charlie Crist has called on utilities to generate 20 percent of their power from renewable sources and FPL says that these new solar projects will help meet that goal. The projects still need regulatory approval but FPL says they expect to being construction on the 25 megawatt PV farm by the end of the year and start work on the other two plants next year.