NextLight Renewable Power is developing two large solar power projects in Nevada: one in Boulder City and the other in the Ivanpah Valley near Primm.

NextLight’s Silver State Solar Project, located near Primm, will occupy about 3,000 acres of federal land and will generate as much as 400 MW. The Bureau of Land Management is now conducting a review under the National Environmental Protection Act and held three public scoping meetings in October giving Nevadans an opportunity to comment on the project. The BLM has identified the Silver State Solar Project as a priority.  It is currently anticipated that the BLM will issue a final Right of Way for the project next year, and NextLight plans to start construction as early as 2010.

NextLight is also developing the Boulder City Solar Project in the Eldorado Valley.  Earlier this year, NextLight entered into a lease with the City of Boulder City for 1,100 acres in the City’s Energy Zone.   NextLight expects to begin construction of the 150 MW project by mid-2010 and plans to begin delivering clean, solar energy to either California or Nevada customers in 2010.

Questions for Jim Woodruff, vice president of regulatory and government affairs for NextLight Renewable Power:

Why did NextLight choose these sites near Primm and Boulder City?

These sites have three very desirable characteristics. First, solar energy is a tremendous state treasure for Nevada, which has intense solar radiation and a very high number of cloudless days.  This is one of the best solar resources in the United States, if not the world.

Second, these areas have excellent access to existing transmission infrastructure. You can generate solar power anywhere the sun shines, but you have to get it into the system so that it can be used. There are a number of possible paths in the Primm and Boulder City areas.

And finally, there is a very favorable business climate in Nevada. Nevada’s tax abatements create an incentive to develop solar generating assets.   The federal, state and local agencies, have been very easy to work with. That’s not something you find everywhere. Nevada has been welcoming solar with open arms. We’re very bullish on Nevada as a place to do solar.

Who are you planning to sell this clean electricity to?

There is no current agreement with a buyer. There has been a great deal of interest from a number of buyers, including utilities in California and Nevada.  Both of these projects are very well situated to meet the needs of utility customers in the West.

Some people balk at the idea of selling energy produced in Nevada to California or other surrounding states. But some people say we should be a net energy exporter. What do you think?

Electricity generated from sunlight can serve the needs of Nevada customers, but it can be exported as well. You make any product locally and sell it locally but also nationally and internationally.  Think of energy generated from sunlight in Nevada as an agricultural crop, but one that uses significantly less water.   I think for Nevada to take advantage of this tremendous resource it’s going to have to be an exporter of power. Certainly the state has an aggressive RPS and that should be met. But to grow the industry here take advantage of the resource, you need to export the product.

There are a number of advantages for Nevada as an exporter of solar energy.  Nevada gets jobs, it gets a tax base and it gets the very high visibility of being a renewable energy leader.  One of the things that’s harder to quantify is the secondary benefits of a native industry like solar. If Nevada is as successful in attracting solar as I think it can be, a lot of industry and business will grow around that in the next decade – the workforce, the industries that that manufacture the parts, the industries that serve the operating needs of large scale solar, and so on.

Why is your company choosing to invest in solar power? Is this the wave of the future?

This is a great time to be developing utility-scale solar projects.  There is a very high demand for quality renewable energy projects because of the growing awareness that these resources are essential to protect the environment and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  Many states, including Nevada, California and Arizona have enacted legislation creating incentives and mandates to develop these resources.  Solar also has the advantage of delivering when the sun shines, when demand for energy is the highest in the West.  The market for solar is very strong today.  Investors or course are looking for a return, but in today’s market, the economics work out; it’s an opportunity to make money doing the right thing.

How many construction jobs will these projects create?

The Silver State Solar Project (near Primm) will create an average of 400 construction jobs over a period of 2.5 – 3 years. The Boulder City Solar Project will create an average of about 350 construction jobs over a somewhat shorter period.

Are you following the proposed federal climate change and energy bill that passed the House in June and is now in the Senate? Would renewable energy companies benefit from the proposed national renewable energy portfolio standard (RPS) that would require electric utilities to meet 20% of their electricity demand through renewable energy sources and energy efficiency by 2020?

The federal government is looking at a number of things, including a federal RPS, that we support. The federal government is also looking at cap and trade legislation to directly regulate carbon emissions. I’m not an economist, but I think RPS is a substitute for a completely transparent carbon market, which we don’t have today. For 100 years, we have been generating electricity using fossil fuels. Renewable energy, such as solar energy may seem more expensive than “conventional” forms of generation that use natural gas or coal, but there is a hidden subsidy for fossil fuel fired generation, which the unrecognized cost of environmental damage. Cap and trade legislation would cause the market to fully internalize that cost.  If that cost were fully internalized today solar generation would have already reached grid parity and solar would be considered a bargain by comparison.

If legislation is enacted that implements that market in a relatively short amount of time, it will cause the costs and benefits of all forms of electricity production to be transparent and I think we’ll see a much greater demand for renewable energy driven by such a  market or the next decade..

Why are you looking at PV (Photovoltaics) instead of solar thermal for both of these Nevada projects?

NextLight Renewable Power is “technology agnostic.”  We are not a technology company.  We are a development company.  The issue is providing the greatest value for our customer and for our investors.  We have considered developing CSP (concentrating solar power) at several sites, and continue to look at CSP as a possibility. In fact, at first with the Primm site we thought we were going to do a CSP project. But to do a CSP project you need water. My colleagues and I spent a lot of time looking in Southern Nevada for water. It was a challenge. That is a major consideration in this part of the world, frankly. Water is politics, and the politics do not favor using water to generate electricity. That was one of the drivers. In the end, PV proved to be more cost-effective than CSP.

I understand that your company has met with apprentices from the Joint Apprenticeship Training Program with IBEW. Tell me a little about your interactions with labor unions interested in helping to build the plant?

We ran into Steve Ross and some of his folks at a Boulder City council meeting earlier this year. They supported the Boulder City Solar Project publicly. I think they recognize it’s in our mutual interest to go forward with these projects because they may be candidates for their workforce.  We went to see their facility in Las Vegas and were very impressed with the quality of the training provided.  As I said, as a developer, NextLight is looking to deliver the best value to its investors and customers.  We are keeping all of our options open.

Your company has committed to using local workers to build the plant. Tell me a little about that.

We have publicly committed to using local labor for our projects. We know there is very high unemployment in the Las Vegas area, and a lot of that is construction labor. Many of those skills are transferable to the type of construction and installation that take place in a PV project, and we’re committed to using local labor.

When can the Primm project start delivering electricity?

We’re targeting completion of the BLM permitting process by mid 2010. With a power purchase agreement in place, that would put us in a position to secure construction financing for the Silver State Solar Project in 2010. There’s a good possibility we could start construction of the project by 2010.  Deliveries could begin as early as 2011 depending on the point of interconnection to the transmission system.

When could the Boulder City project start delivering electricity?

We will complete permitting in 2010 and start construction in 2010. The first deliveries will be in 2010 or 2011. With the PV plants, the first panel you put in can begin delivering energy. These PV projects can start deliveries as soon as we plug them into the grid.