Utility-Scale Solar Power: Opportunities and Obstacles

Opening Statement By Vice-Chair Gabrielle Giffords (Energy and Environment)

Good morning.  It is my great privilege today to convene this field hearing of the Subcommittee on Energy & Environment, entitled "Utility-Scale Solar Power: Opportunities and Obstacles."  I want to welcome everyone to Tucson.

Rarely does a hearing go by where I do not talk about Arizona, so you can imagine what a pleasure it is to be able to show my fellow Committee members why I am so proud of our community and the work we are doing together on solar energy.

Many thanks to my colleagues from the Science & Technology Committee.  They have all given part of their district work period to come to southern Arizona today.

We are honored to have with us Members from all over the country.  This is a testament to the high level of interest in solar power, and to its relevance to the whole nation.

In particular, I would like to extend a very special welcome to the two most senior members of the full Science and Technology Committee:

• The Chairman of the full committee, Mr. Bart Gordon, of Tennessee, who was unfortunately detained in Washington due to weather and mechanical problems with his airplane.  He should be joining us by phone in just a bit;  and
• The Ranking Member, Mr. Ralph Hall, of Texas.

Thank you both for coming.

Also with us today are:

• Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, Vice-Chair of the full committee;
• Rep. Jim Matheson from Utah; and
• Rep. Harry Mitchell, a fellow member of the Arizona delegation.

No one can remember the last time that so many members of Congress came together in Tucson for a field hearing.  I am particularly pleased that we are here on such an important topic.

Thank you all for making the special effort to be here today.

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to our witnesses.  We are glad you are here to share your expertise with the committee.  It was an incredible challenge to narrow our panel down to just six.

There are so many smart and talented people with important perspectives on these issues, including many members of my own Solar Advisory Council.

I wish we could fit them all at the witness table, but space and time constraints prevent us from doing so.

I thank all of these people for their important contributions to solar power and their work with my office on our solar initiatives.  We value their expertise, and I will continue to seek their counsel and collaboration as we move forward.

Finally, a special welcome to all the members of the community who are here today.  Thank you for your interest in this critical issue.

In the Science & Technology Committee it is common for our Chairman, Mr. Gordon, to refer to us as the "Committee of Big Ideas."

This notion is certainly well-grounded in history.  Formed in the wake of Sputnik and initially charged with winning the space race, the Committee is now celebrating 50 years of promoting big ideas in American science and technology.

But the Chairman’s statement is as much about the future as it is about the past.  It expresses the belief – which I share – that the greatest days of American innovation lie ahead of us.

So in my view it could not be more fitting that the Committee is turning its attention to solar power.  Solar is a BIG IDEA whose time has come.

And like the space program, solar is an idea that can shape our nation in significant and positive ways.

In the coming months and years, we will face critical decisions on how to address climate change, reduce our dependence on foreign energy, and boost our economic competitiveness.

The beauty of solar power is that it offers an elegant solution to all three of these pressing concerns.

Imagine what it would be like if every time it rained, it rained oil – big, black drops falling from the sky.  Don’t you think we’d find a way to catch some of that bounty from the heavens?  I think we’d be running around with big buckets, scooping up every available drop.

As absurd as that picture may be, with solar energy we have something just as good – useful energy that is literally pouring down from the sky.

And nowhere does it "rain" sunshine with greater intensity and consistency than in the American Southwest.  In fact, some studies show there’s enough sunshine in the Southwest to power almost our entire country!  One of these studies was recently reported in a cover story in Scientific American.

In other words, the Southwest is home to a national treasure that streams from the sky almost every day.  That sounds like a good reason to get serious about developing an effective solar bucket.

And while we’re at it, let’s make it a big bucket.  The focus of this hearing is not just any kind of solar power, it is utility-scale solar power.

Utility-scale refers to large installations that can generate significant amounts of electricity for the grid, but with free fuel and no pollution.

Developing solar installations on this scale creates unique opportunities, but it also has unique challenges.  We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about both.

Our goals in holding this hearing are to explore five issues:

• the potential scale of solar power in America;
• the current state of solar technology;
• the benefits to our nation of embracing this energy source;
• the obstacles to developing solar power in a big way; and
• the policies that can help us overcome those obstacles.

The time for solar is now: technologies are improving, costs are falling, and the reasons to adopt it are increasingly compelling.

We need to truly understand the potential of this energy source, and how we can unleash it.  That’s what today’s hearing is about.

Opening Statement By Chairman Bart Gordon

Thank you, Congresswoman, for taking the lead in putting together this important hearing.  It is obvious that solar energy has the potential to provide a significant amount of power right here in Arizona, and I look forward to learning more about how states that don’t get quite as much sun, like my home state of Tennessee, might be able to benefit from the tremendous resource we have in the Southwest.

Then again, I could point out that in 2006, Germany installed about seven times more solar power than the entire U.S., and that country’s solar resources are roughly equal to Alaska’s, so I know that we could be doing much more to utilize the sun’s energy.

It’s clear that a major component of any scheme to use solar power on a large scale has to be energy storage.  I am encouraged that the Grand Solar Plan that Mr. Hansen will describe would make use of compressed air and thermal energy storage technologies.

Further developments in advanced batteries will also be a critical part of the distributed generation systems that Ms. Rauluk will talk more about in just a few minutes.  I’m proud that our Committee’s bipartisan work last year on energy storage, which had essential contributions in this area from both you and Mr. Hall, was included in the latest energy bill that became law in December.

An improved transmission system is also needed, especially if we ever expect to get a large fraction of our energy from the remote regions where renewable resources like solar and wind are concentrated.

Our current system of power lines isn’t robust enough to carry large amounts of power from these centers to consumers everywhere.  Too much energy would be lost over the long distances between generation and delivery of power.

Studies by Oak Ridge National Laboratory show that new high-voltage direct current lines lose far less energy than existing transmission lines over the same distances.  They may also be more reliable and cheaper to build.  I look forward to hearing more about the prospects for making these kinds of changes to our electric grid system from this panel.

And I am also concerned about the nexus between water and energy.  While regular solar panels really don’t need much water except to clean them on occasion, some estimates show solar thermal technology using more water than a typical coal plant.

It is important that, moving forward we take the whole picture into account and do everything we can to avoid trading one big problem for another.

I am excited about the opportunities that large-scale solar power presents to create thousands of new green jobs and reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy.  Our Committee will continue to do everything we can to help overcome the barriers to getting us there.

Representative Giffords, thank you again for your strong leadership to promote solar energy, and thanks to this distinguished panel of witnesses for being here today.

Witnesses

Panel

1 - Mr. Mark Mehos
Program Manager Concentrating Solar Power Program National Renewable Energy Laboratory Concentrating Solar Power Program National Renewable Energy Laboratory
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2 - Mr. Tom Hansen
Vice President of Environmental Services, Conservation and Renewable Energy Tucson Electric Power Company Tucson Electric Power Company
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3 - Ms. Kate Maracas
Vice President, Arizona Operations Abengoa Solar Abengoa Solar
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4 - Ms. Valerie Rauluk
Founder and Chief Executive Officer Venture Catalyst Inc. Venture Catalyst Inc.
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5 - Ms. Barbara Lockwood
Manager, Renewable Energy Arizona Public Service Co. Arizona Public Service Co.
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6 - Mr. Joe Kastner
Vice President, Implementation and Operations MMA Renewable Ventures LLC MMA Renewable Ventures LLC
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