The US Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has issued a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) for the Blythe Solar Power Project, which is composed of four adjacent 250MW concentrating solar power (CSP) plants, totaling 1GW of generation capacity. Solar Millennium AG (Erlangen, Germany) and Chevron Energy Solutions (San Ramon, California, US) will jointly develop the plants, which when complete will occupy 9,400 acres of desert managed by the BLM in Southern California. The issuance of the FEIS begins a 30-day comment period, after which the BLM will make a final decision on the plant, which must also receive approval by the California Energy Commission (CEC) before construction can begin. Read more...

Ten years ago, most of the photovoltaic (PV) systems installed in the world utilized batteries for storage and were not connected to an electric grid. While connection to a grid has become the dominant way that the world uses this technology in the last decade, there are still many areas of the world that do not have access to such a grid, where off-grid PV can be a practical solution to power needs. In coming decades, off-grid PV may again become a significant portion of worldwide PV installations, and off-grid PV in the developing world offers tremendous market opportunities. Read more...

CSP Today talked to Dr Fred Morse, a prominent actor in the field of solar energy since the 1960s. Today, Morse acts as co-Chairman of the Western Governors’ Association Solar Task Force and Chairman of the CSP Division of the U.S. Solar Energy Industries Association. Read more...