MONDAY BUSINESS : PREVIEW: Some of the major business and economic events scheduled for this week : Edison’s Solar Power Project Called a Success but Will Be Shut Down

An experimental Southern California Edison facility has been dubbed a success by federal officials for reliably generating electricity from the sun, even when the sun wasn’t out. But the project is about to be shut down.

Solar Two, a 10-megawatt solar energy demonstration project in the Mojave Desert town of Daggett, has produced about 8,500 megawatt hours of solar power, including at night and when the sun was obscured by clouds, since it began operation in June 1996. When operated at full capacity, Solar Two generated enough power for 10,000 average homes for a day.

However, Solar Two is being terminated now that it has used up its three years of funding--totaling $55 million--from the U.S. Energy Department and a public/private consortium led by Southern California Edison.

“We’re proud of Solar Two’s success, as it marks a significant milestone in the development of large-scale solar energy projects,” Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said. “It takes us a step closer to making renewable energy a significant contributor to the global energy mix while helping to make our environment cleaner.”

The sponsors called Solar Two’s design commercially viable but not immediately marketable in the United States. However, countries such as Brazil, Egypt and Spain are interested in the technology, the DOE said.

Solar Two’s design uses nearly 2,000 giant, sun-tracking mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto an elevated container through which molten salt flows. The heated salt is stored and, when electricity is needed, run through a generator, driving a turbine and creating power.

Solar One, which operated from 1982 to 1986, used water and steam to drive a conventional turbine. That system could not store energy efficiently, which limited production on cloudy days and at night.