Scaling Solar

Focus on renewables has been enormously popular lately, both with the media at large and popular opinion, but now things are getting serious.

Seriously large, at least.

One of the primary concerns of solar naysayers are those who wonder what type of economies of scale are actually necessary to make the (relatively) expensive photovoltaic panels worthy of an investment. At 1,300 MW, the latest solar project from SoCal Edison may just show us what that number might be.

For your reference, a comparison of average capacities by type of fuel (click for larger view):

Note the ludicrously large difference between the average solar project and SoCal Edison's proposal. They haven't disclosed financing details, but I promise I'll be all over them to give you the scoop once something leaks out...