Environment

San Diego Company Plans Big Solar Power Plant

By Ed Joyce / Reporter

Published April 15, 2009 at 1:15 PM PDT

This story was published more than 15 years ago.

A subsidiary of San Diego-based Sempra Energy is proposing to build what the company says would be the largest solar energy plant in North America. KPBS Environment Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

Sempra Generation President and CEO Mike Allman says the company intends to build a 48-megawatt expansion of its existing solar power facility south of Las Vegas.

He says that's enough to provide electricity for 30,000 homes.

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"We haven't announced who our customer will be yet but it's unlikely that the power will come to San Diego," Allman said.

He says the company will sell the power to a southwest-based utility.

But Allman says Sempra Generation hopes to develop some renewable projects to benefit San Diego.

"We have some of the greatest solar resources in California, the Mojave Desert, the Imperial Valley, are excellent resources where the sun will shine more than 330 days a year," Allman said.

Allman says the Nevada plant would become the largest photovoltaic solar-power facility in North America.

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He says it could be operational by late next year.

Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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