Friday, October 23, 2009 at 10:49:27 AM - by Nate Lew

On Wednesday, October 21, an historic groundbreaking took place in Aurora, Colorado.

When completed, the 74-acre Solar Technology Acceleration Center, or SolarTAC, will become one of the biggest solar technology testing facilities in the United States, offering an inclusive and integrated means for testing the commercial viability of solar technologies ranging from simple photovoltaics to larger, utility-scale concentrating solar power options.

With more than 300 days of sunshine a year, and a solar insolation value of 5.0 (on a scale of 2.0 to 6.0 within the contiguous United States), the site’s level terrain and accessibility to Denver and Denver International Airport make it a win-win for solar, and the collaboration of seven partners – all involved in energy research and generation – proves that solar energy is ready and willing to join mainstream energy generation.

Partners include the city of Aurora, Spain-based Abengoa Solar; Kansas City, Missouri-based Midwest Research Institute (SolarTAC’s manager); Beltsville, Maryland-based SunEdison; Minneapolis, Minnesota-based Xcel Energy (serving Minn., Wisconsin, Michigan, North and South Dakota, Colorado, New Mexico and Texas); Colorado School of Mines; the Colorado Renewable Energy Collaboratory (or CREW, affiliated with the University of Colorado, Boulder); Palo Alto, California based Electric Power Research Institute, or EPRI, and – most recently – Golden, Colorado-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory, one research arm of the Department of Energy with headquarters in Washington D.C.

Located on the newly designated 1,762-acre Aurora Campus for Renewable Energy, dedicated to research and development on alternative energy technologies aimed at generating power without creating greenhouse gases, the site is part of the city of Aurora’s master plan for development.

Aurora, which paid about $10 million for the land about five years ago, plans to lease to SolarTAC, whose facilities will sponsor research in three areas: proprietary (in which the results are not shared; common, in which research is shared among participating or interested entities; and public research, which can be shared with anyone interested in following solar energy developments.

The only partner that stands out is Xcel Energy, an investor-owned utility. However, Xcel Energy officials have long acknowledged the need for “cleaner” energy from utility-scale power generation, as witness their groundbreaking wind project in Minnesota, a 600-plus assembly of wind turbines initiated in 1999 along Buffalo Ridge, a promontory that provides more high-grade wind resources than the entire state of California. The installation, and additions over the years, has led to the renaming of the small town of Lake Benton as “The Wind Power Capital of the World”.

Xcel Energy also offers a solar energy participation program to ratepayers through Solar Rewards, which costs ratepayers about .35 cents a month but pays $2 per watt for installed solar energy systems, as well as a REC (Renewable Energy Credit) fee of $2.50 per watt, which would cover about half the cost of a 2- to 3-kilowatt system.