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To: DOUG H who wrote (11698)	3/20/2001 4:00:02 AM
From: DOUG H	Respond to of 13572

PowerPark to test distributed-generation model, alternative-energy concepts By Stephen Lacey RED HERRING March 15 — The California energy crisis has turned deregulation into a dirty word. Yet the Golden State’s electricity woes, however painful, provide the ideal backdrop to rethink completely how businesses and consumers generate and purchase electricity. TAKE PLEASANTON PowerPark, a 150,000-square-foot industrial complex under development about 15 miles east of San Francisco. By the time the site is completed, RealEnergy, its Los Angeles-based developer, will have phased in a fleet of distributed-generating technologies that would make the facility not only self-sufficient, but also able to sell power back to the electric grid. RealEnergy will sell these technologies to real estate developers, which can offer alternative energy at their properties. ‘We’ll take retail tariffs, wholesale clearing price at the exchange, and let our software decide whether we sell upstream [to utility companies] or downstream [to customers],’ says RealEnergy CEO Kevin Best. High wholesale prices are the key to the distributed-generation model and alternative-energy concepts that will be tested at Pleasanton. ‘We’re going to have some blackouts this summer,’ says Joseph Arsenio, a senior analyst at J.P. Morgan Chase, ‘and that’s going to focus more attention on the types of technologies being employed at Pleasanton. Indeed, PowerPark is expected to be a who’s who and what’s what of alternative energy, as well as a testing ground for new ideas. Phase I of the project, targeted for completion in June 2001, will combine solar arrays manufactured by AstroPower and BP Solar, which will use Capstone Turbine microturbines. These technologies should generate about 600 kilowatts of power, enough to meet about half the needs of PowerPark’s three tenants — an electronics manufacturer, an industrial parts distributor, and a biotechnology research facility. RealEnergy expects to use Phase II, targeted for completion in January 2002, to experiment with newer technologies — from fuel cells to a 400-kilowatt internal combustion engine to hydrogen reformers that store solar electricity to a high-temperature thermal electric unit being created by Duke Energy. This futuristic unit can heat water, powering heat engines for electricity, or it can be placed in absorption coolers for air conditioning. PowerPark will be completed in January 2003 with the addition of Xonon turbines, which use natural gas and a chemical reaction to produce zero-emission power. To fund construction of the facility, which should cost $25 million to $30 million, RealEnergy expects to raise $20 million in a second round of financing.