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Utah has more than 6,300 sites set aside for solar energy, and 51 set aside for wind power. But so far, only a few are being used. What are some of the future plans for Utah's green power picture?
More and more people call Frank Naylor, the owner of Solar Power Company in Salt Lake, asking how they can make it so they never have to pay an electric bill ever again.
"The average home would probably require about a $60,000 to $70,000 system to meet their needs," he said.
Yeah, that's a bit much, so people generally go for a cheaper system that lets them offset some of their electricity with Rocky Mountain Power. Naylor says the demand for those has shot up dramatically since last year, even though they cost an average of $10,000.
"They (RMP) have a program, too, an incentive that they will give you to encourage you to do it. The state of Utah has an incentive that they will give you to do it, and the federal government has an incentive," he said.
Ground has been broken on a solar power plant in St. George, but it doesn't use regular solar panels.
Utah Clean Energy Executive Director Sarah Wright said, "[With] a concentrating solar plant, you take a parabolic trough that's really reflective. The sun reflects onto it and heats a tube that has a fluid in it, and it makes steam to turn a turbine."
Wright says these panels are cheaper than regular panels, but still very expensive. Matter of fact, she says most renewable forms of energy are more expensive than fossil fuels, but she says the answer is to think big.
"If we scale up and everyone starts putting in concentrating solar [power], the price is going to come from 16 cents a kilowatt hour to down to eight to 10 cents a kilowatt hour," she said.
In addition to solar power, new wind farms are being made in Utah. Ground was just broken on a new wind farm in Milford, and state officials are looking into where else they can build one.
"Out of 29 counties in Utah, there are 24 counties that have a very good potential wind resource," said Mary Ann Wright with the Utah Renewable Energy Zone Task Force.
She says they've even noticed green energy in oil and gas fields in the Uintah Basin. She says heat sources have been found that produce super-heated water at depths of 14,000 feet.
E-mail: pnelson@ksl.com
