Chevron is grabbing green energy headlines again this morning with its plans to put 7,700 solar panels in an 8-acre brownfield test facility called Project Brightfield in Bakersfield, Calif.
The LA Times first reported that Chevron announce its plans to test seven photovoltaic solar panel technologies as candidates to power its facilities worldwide. Even before today’s announcement, Chevron had emerged as an unexpected supporter and tester of up-and-coming solar technologies.
This is exactly the kind of partnership — Chevron using its R&D might and considerable cash to shepherd new technology to the mainstream — that green energy enthusiasts fream about. Chevron officials tell the LA Times that they plan to invest $2 billion over the next three years on renewable power ventures.
Last month, Chevron announced that it was putting a 1-megawatt concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar facility, a hybrid technology made by Concentrix Solar, on the site of an abandoned mine in New Mexico.
The oil major is also using solar steam technology from BrightSource Energy, a company it has invested in, to improve oil production in the Coalinga field in California. The company has also converted a former Texaco refinery site in Casper, Wyo., as a wind farm.
The company plans to test the technologies in Project Brightfield under different conditions and compare their performance against an unnamed benchmark solar technology.
The thin-film technologies being tested at are MiaSolé, Schüco, Solar Frontier, Sharp, and Solibro, and crystalline-silicon photovoltaic technology comes from Innovalight.
Des King, president of Chevron Technology Ventures, said of Project Brightfield
By bringing together seven emerging solar technologies, Project Brightfield represents one of the most comprehensive solar energy tests of its kind and is an innovative approach to evaluating new technologies.
The field were generate 740 kW of electricity, which will go to the local grid and the oil production operations at the Kern River field.