NMAEE News for May

"Concentrating Solar Power"

Speaker: Andrew McMahan, VP Technology and Projects, SkyFuel, Inc.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008
11:45am - 1:00pm
MCM Elegante
2020 Menaul Blvd., NE
(University and Menaul)

President's Message

This month’s luncheon presentation will highlight yet another emerging clean energy technology.
Concentrating Solar Power (SCP) is primarily used for electricity production. It is ideally suited for the desert southwest because the high solar irradiation makes it economically feasible. The current cost to produce electricity with parabolic trough concentrators is about 12 cents per kWh. The cost is expected to be reduced to about 6 cents per kWh within ten years which makes it cost competitive with electricity produced from fossil fuels.

Please see below for Andrew McMahan’s description of the presentation.

Lee Imhof, President

About Our Speaker

Andrew McMahan is the Vice President of Technology for SkyFuel, Inc. He is a veteran of both the renewable and conventional energy industries who has worked in industrial energy efficiency, solar energy research, oil & gas exploration. He is now at SkyFuel working on the development and deployment of large-scale concentrating solar power systems.

Mr. McMahan holds an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from of the University of Wisconsin – Madison obtained while studying at the University’s Solar Energy Laboratory.

Speaker’s summary of the presentation

The presentation will cover the basic principles and technological advantages of Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) relative to other renewable energy technologies as well as why interest in CSP is growing so rapidly. In the coming decade CSP has the potential to move from being an obsolete player in the renewable energy market to the technology that can displace combined-cycle natural gas power plants as the market reference standard for new electricity generating capacity in the southwest United States.