Mesquite solar plant is completed (150 MW, AZ)

[jpak]

http://www.azcentral.com/business/consumer/articles/20130509mesquite-solar-plant-completed.html

Officials celebrated the completion of a massive power plant west of Phoenix on Friday, just a week after a similar giant solar plant nearby celebrated a construction milestone.

The Mesquite Solar facility owned by Sempra U.S. Gas and Power has a capacity of 150 megawatts and sends its power to California.

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The Mesquite project can deliver enough electricity to supply about 37,500 Arizona homes at once when the sun is shining on the plant and it is at full power. One megawatt is enough electricity to supply about 250 homes at once.

The power plant covers about 1,000 acres, stretching 2 miles across.

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[msongs]

1. rooftop solar for everyone, not corporate power grabs and strangulation nt

[longship]

2. What good would rooftop solar do in Pacific NW?

Or, where I live, in Michigan? At high latitudes summers have long days, but winters have proportionally short days. The fact is that rooftop solar is just not universally practical. In winter here there's just not enough sun; in summer it is often cloudy. Some places are not suitable for solar. That's a fact.

Plus, I would bet my bottom dollar that the cost of universal rooftop solar would be prohibitive. Ignoring the location suitabilities, there are economies of scale which your position seems to ignore. Building a large solar energy plant which can supply everybody in a proportionally large area the power they need distributes the cost over the area served and the time the plant will be productive. That's just basic Econ 101. The power can also be transported over large distances to where such solar generation is not at all a solution.

Your solution seems to both impractical and unrealistic to say the least.

Good thinking out of the box, though.

Wouldn't a better solution to your complaint be public regulation for public utilities?

My electric company is a co-op. I get dividends every year from the economy of scale central generation provides.

[XemaSab]

3. So it makes more sense

to totally blade the southwest and build high tension towers all the way up to Michigan?

Right.

[longship]

5. Well...

Nobody is recommending that we blade up the SW and transport power to MI. That seems to be a straw man argument to me as nobody is suggesting anything like that.

But building solar plants in the SW to supply power to the SW certainly seems like a good idea. And putting wind turbines on the Great Lakes might serve the adjoining states and provinces quite well. After all wind is powered by the Sun as well.

I am sure there are plenty of people who are wealthy enough to afford to put solar panels on their roofs. That certainly will help in those areas where that solution is practical. But your idea, although innovative, just won't work in practice to say nothing about getting the funding of such a plan through Congress. We can do things which are achievable and realistic.

If you don't like the big power companies, that's fine. A practical and much more achievable solution to that is regulation. As I said, my power company is a rural co-op which returns profits to its voting members at the end of every year. That effectively cuts my January bill to zilch. In the meantime our reliability -- always dodgy out here in the woods -- has improved vastly. I don't like everything my co-op does, but that's why I go to the meetings and I vote.

I like what Bill Nye says about these issues. We're a pretty smart species. We can solve these problems. Nye wants us to solve them by doing more for less cost -- there's that economy of scale again. He's pretty much right on target there. And, indeed, roof top PV panels are part of the solution, for those who can afford them. No one solution is going to do it, though. It's not either/or. It's not a dichotomy.

[kristopher]

4. Perhaps you should consider the possibility...

...that, rather than the solar resource in Michigan or the Pacific NW, it is your view of how an energy system is supposed to operate that is lacking.

Or are you under the same illusion the Fox News folks are - that Germany is a sunny paradise?

Info on MI solar: http://solarpowerrocks.com/michigan/

[longship]

7. Fine, kristopher, you are correct.

But the issue was whether we should put solar panels on all rooftops. That clearly won't work here in the national forest, no matter how much the sun shines.

More than anything my objection here is that there is one universal solution. That clearly is not so. Iceland uses geothermal power. The SW USA has solar. The mountain passes in CA have wind. And yes, Germany is using solar. But Germany is not the USA, which spans a large continent. So the comparison to Germany is not exactly analogous.

There's nothing I would like better than if the USA poured billions into sustainable carbon-free energy infrastructure implemented with an open, multifaceted and forward looking energy policy where both large scale projects with proven technologies and basic research take no back seat.

That's how one solves this issue. In other words, I think it is naive to think that there is a single solution.

Always enjoy your responses, even though we don't always agree, my friend. You usually make good points.

[kristopher]

8. I think you are contradicting yourself.

What you are describing doesn't align with what you are prescribing. You are, very correctly, calling for the use of the entire portfolio of renewables. However, you are then allocating their use in regions that you associate with having an abundance of each resource. Just because a region has great X resource doesn't mean that N, Q, Y and Z are not also important.

Germany is an excellent model.

Thank you for the pleasant words.

[longship]

9. A clarification.

I don't always phrase my posts so clearly. Forgive me for that.

The US is not likely to pour billions into developing solar PV power in MI right now. However, a very good argument can be made to spend lots of money where a lot can be gained, in the desert southwest. That may not be even an optimum strategy or even are argument against solar in the Cascades or along the Great Lakes. But there are other things that can be done there.

We're still developing these large scale green energy projects. Before they're proven -- yup, I know... Germany -- and become politically possible, we may have to settle for doing what we can do. In the meantime, we can keep pushing for something more akin to what you suggest. Also, technological advances are likely going to help in these efforts. With more efficient and cheaper PV panels becoming available maybe some day we'll have those rooftop panels msongs wants.

Germany is not analogous because Germany has no desert southwest. They do what they can with what they have. The SW is natural for solar, so that's where we build it. I know it's kind of like the drunk looking for his car keys under the streetlight, but we do what we can where we can and when we can.

Just trying to be realistic. I know that it doesn't make sense, but these things rarely do when politics rears its ugly head. And make no mistake, if the GOP were a responsible political party there is little doubt in my mind that Obama would be leading on this issue. Sadly, this means that those options we may wish to be on the table aren't even at the kids' table.

Please don't mistake my post about how things are with any intent to state that's the way they should be.

As always.

[kristopher]

10. What do you mean when you say "the US"?

Let's leave aside the political unit of MI for a moment.

What you are saying, in economic terms, is that investment is following the greatest return, and that the greatest return is to be found in areas where resources are superior to other resources. In your mind you seem to have developed a generalized resource map onto which you overlay your understanding of the available technologies.

That isn't exactly 'wrong' but there are some areas where your mental model could be improved. For example the benchmark you are using is extremely nebulous. You are concluding that the only time there is economic justification for exploiting a resource is if it in the the location of the "best" resource on the entire continent.
That isn't how it is done. These decisions are made at the local level looking at the benefit/cost of the range of available options. One benchmark in that calculus is the retail price of electricity, another is the wholesale price of electricity. But that is hardly the only thing that is considered. For example, New Jersey is one of the very top states in solar; not because it has a superior resource, but because the land costs are extremely high due to high population density. These land costs drive up the relative costs of running power lines or building local conventional power plants. The state determined subsidized rooftop solar was the most economically effective way to meet increases in their their peak power requirements. Other line items for them were the environmental benefits and the positive public reaction to the program.

By looking at the issue using such a large map, you are losing the resolution that makes clear what is actually going on at ground level. Germany is investing heavily in solar, not because they don't have access to an area like our desert SW (they are also pursuing projects built in Spain) but because the fundamental premise of their transition is to break up the power that centralized generation gives the elites and return control of energy to the individual and local level.

BTW, your good will and intentions are never at issue. You are in good company when using obsolete 'conventional wisdom'.

Conventional Wisdom About Clean Energy Is Still Way Out of Date
“It’s not 1990 anymore.”
CHRIS NELDER: MAY 9, 2013

"We're fifteen to twenty years out of date in how we think about renewables," said Dr. Eric Martinot to an audience at the first Pathways to 100% Renewables Conference held April 16 in San Francisco. "It's not 1990 anymore."

Dr. Martinot and his team recently compiled their 2013 Renewables Global Futures report from two years of research in which they conducted interviews with 170 experts and policymakers from fifteen countries, including local city officials and stakeholders from more than twenty cities. They also reviewed more than 50 recently published scenarios by credible international organizations, energy companies, and research institutes, along with government policy targets for renewable energy, and various corporate reports and energy literature.

The report observes that "[t]he history of energy scenarios is full of similar projections for renewable energy that proved too low by a factor of 10, or were achieved a decade earlier than expected." For example, the International Energy Agency's 2000 estimate for wind power in 2010 was 34 gigawatts, while the actual level was 200 gigawatts. The World Bank's 1996 estimate for China was 9 gigawatts of wind and 0.5 gigawatts for solar PV by 2020, but by 2011 the country had already achieved 62 gigawatts of wind and 3 gigawatts of PV.

Dr. Martinot's conclusion from this exhaustive survey? "The conservative scenarios are simply no longer credible."

There is now a yawning gap between "conservative" scenarios and more optimistic ones, as illustrated in this chart contrasting scenarios published in 2012 by entities like the IEA and ExxonMobil with those offered by groups like the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (an international scientific policy research organization), Greenpeace, and the World Wildlife Fund....

Much more at http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/conventional-wisdom-about-clean-energy-is-way-out-of-date


Hope that helps.

[longship]

11. Thanks, seen this kind of thing before, too.

Again, possibly you mistake my point. The point is not what should we be doing but what can we do in the current milieu.

There's a reason why they're building solar PV plants in the desert SW and not in Washington state. It might be a political one, or people might not be in tune to capabilities and availabilities. But the fact is that the big solar projects seem to coincide with low latitude desert regions in the US.

They're building wind mills here in MI and are talking about planting them offshore in the Great Lakes but MI is not a very windy place. That's good.

But I am not saying, nor would I ever say that this is the way it should be. It is just the way it is right now. If we want to change that, we've got to get people thinking outside the box which I read as the purpose of your responses in this thread.

As to the correct perception of the fossil fuel industry having a lock on power generation, that can only be fought by waging battles across a wide spectrum of science, engineering, politics, and business. There are many powerful foes in this battle. Although science show ways to the future we usually have to drag politics and business along screaming all the way. And what does one do with people like James Inhof? How does one marginalize his message when so many people actually believe his spewage?

We've got some work to do, my friend.

[kristopher]

12. Just a reminder

This discussion is suffering from internet drift, so let's recap one point. You wrote:
"What good would rooftop solar do in Pacific NW? Or, where I live, in Michigan? At high latitudes summers have long days, but winters have proportionally short days. The fact is that rooftop solar is just not universally practical. In winter here there's just not enough sun; in summer it is often cloudy. Some places are not suitable for solar. That's a fact.

I hope you now understand that your fact is, in fact, not factually accurate.

[longship]

13. Indeed. There are some here with solar panels.

But I am not too sure that they are independent of commercial power. I have passive solar on one of my buildings which has had a workshop along the south side. It works well in spring and autumn when the sun shines, but it's useless in winter and, of course at night.

In late spring through the dog days of summer the sun sets late here. On mid summers eve dusk is well after 10PM local time. Certainly, solar would be very helpful then. But in winter the sun rises late, sets early, and is lower on the horizon for many weeks. Such affairs are not favorable for solar anything. It's just astronomy 101, kristopher.

Photovoltaic systems have to store power to provide for when the sun isn't up or when impeded by clouds. That's why nobody's building PV arrays in MI, or indeed anywhere in the US at higher latitudes. If you are going to make a proof of concept installation -- which in spite of German efforts is all we're doing here -- why do it anywhere but at lower latitudes and where there are many days with lots of sunshine.

But these are mere technological issues, ones which you aptly point out can be solved and have been solved, albeit at smaller scales.

Our situation is not like in Germany, especially our political culture. We're clearly behind them on this because we've wasted decades, and very well may waste many more, coming to the conclusion that a smaller, more progressive country -- with far fewer regressive movements -- can come to with alacrity.

My main point is that this is not a technological fight. It is an ideological and political fight. A vast proportion of the US public wants gun control and we cannot even get that through congress. The same people who oppose gun control think that climate change is a hoax and anyway God won't let the planet die, and anyway if it does it's because Jesus is returning. Or that we'd worry the fossil fuel companies. (A bit of hyperbole, but it's not far off the mark.)

What I really, really worry about is a kind of energy Lysenkoism here in the US, where government is so in bed with commercial interests that they no longer fund critical research in these crucial areas. Then, the US will become a technological backwater in energy. I shudder to think of the damage that could be done.

It's been a long day here. I have thoroughly enjoyed our discussions here. I agree that people sometimes talk past each other. I try not to do that but it's somewhat inevitable on a mere iPhone where I cannot see the context when I compose a post. Forgive me for that. No other bandwidth here in the national forests of MI.

It's getting late. I am going to watch a flick and turn in. Chat again soon, I hope.
Adieu.

[kristopher]

6. Report Anticipates 220 New Gigawatts of Distributed Solar Generation by 2018

Report Anticipates 220 New Gigawatts of Distributed Solar Generation by 2018


The Navigant report anticipates that just the distributed generation projects — or projects under 1 megawatt in size — being installed over the next five years will more than double the world’s total solar capacity that is now online.

You might like this article:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112743370

[Yo_Mama]

14. Have you thought this through?

1) The output of solar panels is very dependent on insolation (sunlight). This means that some geographic areas will produce much less solar power than others with the same number of solar panels, and some individual locations will produce very little due to shading during maximum sunshine hours. For example, some homes are shaded due to hillsides/trees/other taller buildings.

2) Installing solar panels on most buildings will rapidly overwhelm the line capacities of many local grids, therefore requiring very expensive upgrades. The cost to do these upgrades across much of the US is utterly prohibitive.

3) In order to feed power into the grid, solar installations require inverters, etc. It is much cheaper to install this equipment for a few larger installations and do any required transmission lines updates than it is to install the same amount of solar production capacity in individual installations.

4) In order to effectively use solar power in the grid to its maximum capacity, during high output times power must be transmitted to other locations. It is easier to manage this with larger plants.