New Mexico PV Project Backed by Ted Turner Now Producing Power
New Mexico's Cimarron Solar Facility is now producing electricity for 9,000 homes. At 30 megawatts, Cimarron is among the nation's largest solar photovoltaic plants. Southern Co. and Ted Turner are backing the project, which will supply power to the member electric cooperatives of Denver-based Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association. Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar, Inc. developed and constructed the facility and will provide operation and maintenance services under a long-term contract. The facility uses approximately 500,000 of First Solar's 2'x 4' advanced thin film photovoltaic modules. "We are very excited to see this project completed and producing clean solar energy to power homes and businesses in New Mexico," said Turner in a press release. "Large-scale solar generation is among the fastest growing energy sources in the world, and we're pleased that we can be a part of that growth."
About the Author
Jim Lucy Blog
Chief Editor
Jim Lucy has been wandering through the electrical market for more than 30 years, most of the time as an editor for Electrical Wholesaling, Electrical Marketing newsletter and CEE News. During that time he and the editorial team for the publications have won numerous national awards for their coverage of the electrical business. He showed an early interest in electricity, when as a youth he had an idea for a hot dog cooker. Unfortunately, the first crude prototype malfunctioned and the arc nearly blew him out of his parents' basement. Before becoming an editor for Electrical Wholesaling magazine and Electrical Marketing, he earned a BA degree in journalism and a MA in communications from Glassboro State College, Glassboro, NJ., which is formerly best known as the site of the 1967 summit meeting between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Aleksei Nikolayevich Kosygin, and now best known as the New Jersey state college that changed its name in 1992 to Rowan University because of a generous $100 million donation by N.J. zillionaire industrialist Henry Rowan. Jim is a Brooklyn-born Jersey Guy happily transplanted in the fertile plains of Kansas for the past 20 years.