Nellis Airforce Base 15MW Solar Project

The United States Nellis Airforce Base in the Nevada Desert near Los Vegas will be home to a 15MW photovoltaic solar cell installation that will meet approximately one quarter of the military base's energy needs. The panels will cover an area of 140 acres of land. Construction has already begun and is expected to be completed by the end of 2008. The Air Force has entered into an agreement with a company called MMA Renewable Ventures. They will finance, own and operate the project and will sell low cost contracted energy to the Air Force.

The base is ideally located for this projects as the area has a very high proportion of days with little or no cloud cover. The appropriateness of the Nevada desert for solar energy applications is well established. The desert is already home to the Nevada Solar One solar generator.

The solar panel arrays are fitted with PowerLight PowerTrackers which operate to angle them toward the sun to maximize electrical output. The trackers allow the approximately 70,000 panels to follow the sun's movement throughout the day.

The Nellis Airforce Base project is a step in the right direction for the US. As a global leader in many ways, the United States is somewhat behind on large scale renewable energy. While this project will make a positive impact on reducing carbon emissions, it is dwarfed by other installations such as the Waldpolenz Solar Park and China's massive 1000MW solar generator, both of which are aimed at commercial production of electricity from solar power. In order to cut our reliance on fossil fuels, all Governments need to approach renewable energy as aggressively as the German and Chinese are doing. Those projects demonstrate that Solar can be a viable mains electricity supply power source.