DailyTech - Intel Awards Contracts for Eight New Solar Installations

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Hardware Intel Awards Contracts for Eight New Solar Installations
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - February 1, 2010 11:01 AM

14 comment(s) - last by nuarbnellaffej.. on Feb 4 at 1:59 PM

Solar Plans at Intel Rio Rancho, N.M. (Source: Intel)

Intel also increased purchase of renewable energy credits

Today, many companies are looking to invest in greentech to reduce their carbon footprints. The move to use renewable energy sources is being bolstered by the Obama administration which not only wants large investments in solar energy, but also a huge upgrade to the nation's power grid.

In October 2009, Dell announced that it would be installing solar power stations at its Round Rock, Texas headquarters that generate 130kW of electricity. At the same time, the Florida Power & Light Company announced a 25MW solar installation with 90,000 solar panels in use.

Intel has announced that it plans to install eight new solar installations in four states. The new solar installations will be at the Intel campuses in Santa Clara, California, Rio Rancho, New Mexico, Chandler Arizona, Ronler Acres, Oregon, and Folsom, California. Intel reports the contracts for the solar installations are in place and will incorporate 2.5MW of solar power.

"Intel is committed to renewable energy to reduce our own carbon footprint as well as to spur the market and make renewables more economically feasible for individuals and businesses to deploy," said Brian Krzanich, vice president and general manager of Manufacturing and Supply Chain for Intel. "These announcements represent our broader commitment which includes diversifying our energy portfolio through solar and other clean energy investments, and this will continue to be a priority for us around the globe."

All of the solar installations will be placed on the roof of the buildings at the campuses except for the system in Folsom, the largest installation planned, which will be installed on six acres of land at the Intel facility. The new installations are set to be complete within the next seven months.

Along with the new solar installations, Intel is also increasing its purchase of renewable energy credits. The new energy credit purchases combined with the solar power installations allow Intel to get 51% of its estimated total power needs for 2010 from green energy.

Despite the benefits of solar power, there are some who are against it. An environmentalist senator in California is trying to block some large solar installations. The reason for Senator Dianne Feinstein's apprehension is fear that the solar installations could damage plants and wildlife in the area.

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Solar is just too political atm...

By The0ne on 2/1/2010 11:36:41 AM , Rating: 2

Prices are all over the place for Solar now. It use to be affordable here in San Diego but now it's almost impossible to consider, let alone justify for the savings. Other cities of course are way cheaper.

My guess is that Sempra/private company(s) are putting the pressure of legislators (aholes imo) to increase the prices here in San Diego. In the meantime, they are pushing for Wind farms and want the public to chip in >.>! That's all good but this is San Diego...use solar!

Wind farms will create jobs initially but cannot sustain it. Keep demand for solar up by cheap prices/incentives, like years past, and energy usage will decrease and the workforce is sustained.

But solar isn't going anywhere if there is no standard set. It's going nowhere now with the current prices :/

RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By Keeir on 2/1/2010 2:55:16 PM , Rating: 2

You realize your upset about the public use of money for wind farms while at the same time asking for increased public handouts for personal solar installations?

No offense, but that seems strange.

Handouts for Solar benifit a select few, but cost everyone.

In terms of investment, it (typically) takes singificantly less subsidy on a per kWh basis to make wind compeditive with fossil fuels/Nuclear than Solar. Overall, its a smarter choice for a city/area looking to increase it "green" power at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer,

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By porkpie on 2/1/2010 3:07:56 PM , Rating: 3

Yep, wind is actually competitive IF you don't try to supply more than about 10% of what you need (non-dispatchable power sucks) and you stick to places that have consistently above-average wind conditions.

Solar doesn't really make sense anywhere...except for extremely remote installations that won't bear the cost of running a power line, and only need a couple kw or so.

For baseline residential and indusrial power generation, nuclear is where its at.

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By Smartless on 2/1/2010 4:03:11 PM , Rating: 2

On contrar mon frar (lol french people roll your eyes). Solar sort of makes sense on rooftops in Hawaii or say suburban Southern California. Yes, yes, cost for these set-ups are enormous on top of retooling the grid but the army housing projects are actually supplying surplus power. Honestly, Hawaii needs a nuclear plant, but I'll play devil's advocate today and say innovation and improvement of solar technology will only come if we create demand nowadays. Like ethanol, good stop gap, terrible long range idea. But if it gets people ready for biodiesel or fuel cell I'm all for it.

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By sigmatau on 2/1/2010 11:00:04 PM , Rating: 2

I'd say about half of the US's households should have some amount of solar panels on their roof. In many European countries, they have small solar panels on the top of most houses to heat their water. Now this may not be enough for some, but this would be a huge start to get solar panel manufacturing and competion on a fast track in the US.

I do agree that it is cheaper to have solar farms instead of handing out the money to each person to install them on their home, but who the hell trusts the large companies to do the right thing? They are there to make the most money off of you. If we all had some amount of solar panels, we can actualy reduce our electric bill while the power companies keep their rates high as they would anyways.

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By The0ne on 2/1/2010 5:18:59 PM , Rating: 2

I'm talking about demand/supply. Absolutely no where did I mention handouts for solar by the government. I'm saying here in San Diego, if prices are kept affordable demand would go up and hence it would benefit the county more as you would have surplus, as with many of my friends do.

You're thinking my use of the word "incentives" implies government or public assistance but in fact I'm merely talking about "sales" type of incentives. If there are government handouts then fine as well.

Here in sunny San Diego, it would do more good to have solar on roof tops than having a wind farm that is privately owned. For instance, they can jack up prices whereas solar usually provides surplus unless it's the summer. The jobs created would be sustainable unlike a finished wind farm where most work to get it up and running would be gone.

This isn't like the mid-west where I've worked on wind turbines and there's plenty of wind and strong ones at that. This is San Diego. I don't know if people see the correlation here or not. If this was Colorado for example I would definitely say go for Wind as they have plenty of it coming from all sides of the mountains.

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By nuarbnellaffej on 2/1/2010 7:56:38 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
I'm talking about demand/supply. Absolutely no where did I mention handouts for solar by the government. I'm saying here in San Diego, if prices are kept affordable demand would go up and hence it would benefit the county more as you would have surplus, as with many of my friends do.

Are you serious? Prices are kept affordable only through government subsidies and tax credits.

quote:
You're thinking my use of the word "incentives" implies government or public assistance but in fact I'm merely talking about "sales" type of incentives. If there are government handouts then fine as well.

You do realize you've just contradicted yourself yet again don't you? You chastised the last poster by saying you weren't talking about government handouts, then in the next paragraph said they were fine as well...

quote:
The jobs created would be sustainable unlike a finished wind farm where most work to get it up and running would be gone.

While I'm not a huge proponent of wind energy, this statement is laughable! Wouldn't the fact that it is low maintenance be a good thing for providing cheap renewable energy!?

If you are really serious about 'clean' energy, then maybe you should do a little research into nuclear energy. The best aspect about nuclear imo is that it does not live off of government subsidies.

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By mingpao on 2/2/2010 3:06:10 PM , Rating: 2

quote:
The best aspect about nuclear imo is that it does not live off of government subsidies.

If only that were true. Aside from the massive cost overruns that afflict any project as large and complicated as a nuclear power plant, and the fact that once the plan is greenlighted there's no way to hold contractors to their artificially low bids, in 2007 nuclear received $1.3 billion in subsidies, coal received $3.3 billion, gas and petroleum got $2.1 billion. Renewables received $4.9 billion.

When you talk about direct subsidies for production, nuclear gets $300 million more than renewables ($1.3 billion vs. $1 billion).

While it is true that wind and solar receive a subsidy of about $24/MWh vs. nuclear's $1.59, coal receives $30!

When it comes to power in the US, there's no such thing as subsidy-free.

Source: 2007 DOE EIA Executive Summary

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RE: Solar is just too political atm...

By nuarbnellaffej on 2/4/2010 1:59:35 PM , Rating: 2

Hmmm I suppose I should have used the phrase 'relatively little' government aid/subsidies. Thanks for the information, but obviously my point still stands.

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One cool thing about solar panels is

By Shig on 2/1/2010 1:35:02 PM , Rating: 2

that the technology is so similar to the semi-conductor industry, Intel could probably convert their older fabs into PV solar cell factories.

+1 to Intel getting more involved in solar. It needs more big backers.

But I also agree that solar is incredibly political atm.

RE: One cool thing about solar panels is

By PandaBear on 2/1/2010 3:04:40 PM , Rating: 3

They make more money selling the old equipments to China/Taiwan than to use it for solar, doing so will be like converting a steak house into a McDonald's.

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Intel Awards Contracts to which company??

By SoulBlighter on 2/1/2010 11:53:23 AM , Rating: 2

Did DT forgot to mention the name of the company got the contract? If my memory is still workable, intel bought some solar tech company or invested some money into solar panel technology. Can anyone refresh that?

RE: Intel Awards Contracts to which company??

By Brandon Hill

(blog) on 2/1/2010 12:00:04 PM , Rating: 2

Eight different campuses in four states means they're probably contracting out to a number of different firms.

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Intel outside

By kontorotsui on 2/2/2010 3:25:11 AM , Rating: 2

So now we have INTEL OUTSIDE too

"You can bet that Sony built a long-term business plan about being successful in Japan and that business plan is crumbling." -- Peter Moore, 24 hours before his Microsoft resignation