The World's First 24/7 Solar Plant is Up and Running (Video)

[bloomington-lib]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhV2LT8KVgA&feature=player_embedded


From Tony Seba's piece in Forbes http://blogs.forbes.com/tonyseba/2011/06/21/the-worlds-first-baseload-247-solar-power-plant/

Gemasolar is a 19.9-MW plant with a 15-hour 'battery'. Gemasolar's expected production is 110,000 MWh per year--or about enough to fully power 25,000 households. Gemasolar to produce electricity about 6,400 hours per year - a capacity factor of 75%. Gemasolar's power tower has a height of 140 meters (459.3 feet.)

The receiver on top of the tower is like a radiator that is heated to a temperature of about 565 degrees Celsius (1,050 degrees Farenheit) by the sunlight reflected by 2,650 heliostats with a total reflective surface of about 300,000 square meters (3.32 million square feet.)

[azul]

1. It's a start.

Stop the criminal pollution and wars, and see how it blooms.

[liberalla]

2. Pretty cool. Go Spain! Go Solar!

My Dad put solar in about 27 years ago, and boy has it come a long way.

For the life of me, I don't understand why the American energy companies (yes, I mean oil) didn't jump on the bandwagon in the beginning, instead of fighting it. Heck, it was the next big thing, and why wouldn't they want to position themselves to get a monopoly on solar back then? They could've controlled (their innate desire) and benefited from solar all this time. Instead of trying to crush it, just join in and profit from it. Solar AND oil. Wouldn't that be good business sense ? Having more options, more arrows in your quiver?

We're behind most of the world in solar development.

[OKIsItJustMe]

4. Re: American energy companies (yes, I mean oil)

Well, they sorta did.

If you look back those 27 years ago, when your Dad was putting in solar, there’s a good chance he went with Shell solar.

http://www.thesolarguide.com/solar-energy-systems/shell-solar.aspx

…

Shell has been involved in solar energy and solar innovation since the late 1970s and early 1980s.

…

Shell Solar is involved in renewable and alternative energies of all kinds, including wind, geothermal, bio-fuels and hydrogen.

In those days Shell was not alone, this is from a 1977 article:

http://abbygruen.wordpress.com/2010/10/18/u-s-invented-solar-panels-but-china-owns-the-industry/

…

In fact, Exxon provides 50 percent of the solar electric sales for the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, and ERDA represents 21 percent of the world’s solar electric market…

From 1970 to 1975, Exxon’s New Jersey operations spent more money on solar-electric research and development than did the federal government – over $5 million…

Exxon’s goal is now to “cover every rooftop in America” with solar panels for hot water, heat, air conditioning and electricity…

“Oil is on the way out and solar is on the way in,” Shrier said during an interview in his office at the Exxon Building in Manhattan…

So the question you should be asking is, why they got off the bandwagon…

[liberalla]

15. OK, better question is why did they get off the bandwagon?

Your right. Thanks for the expanded background. It's kind of like the Electric car (the one in the documentary). They started out and had some success, it had great potential and then they stopped. Plus they did everything possible to "collect" all the electric cars they ever built...

[Nihil]

3. K&R for the future!

> Because it can store energy, this 19.9 MW generates the equivalent
> of a 50 MW solar power plant without storage


> MSES (molten salt energy storage) capital costs are also relatively low,
> clocking in at $50 to $100 per kWh, compared to about ten times that for
> a Li-on battery that powers a personal computer or electric vehicle.


> Torresol’s Arias expects Gemasolar to produce electricity about 6,400 hours
> per year - a capacity factor of 75%.


> “The ability to store energy when the sun it at its peak and deliver it when
> the market demand is at its peak changes everything in the power market.
> My fuel cost is zero. Natural gas can simply not compete with us.”

:woohoo:

Now waiting for the Pickens fan club to turn up, start poking holes in the
article and still spinning it as somehow being sponsored by nuclear power ...

:evilgrin:

[FBaggins]

5. Well... for one thing it isn't a capacity factor of 75%.

They cite the peak capacity and how much electricity they expect to produce over the course of the year.

The math is simple enough and works out to 63%, not 75%. "number of hours producing electricity" isn't relevant if you aren't at full capacity for all of those hours.

Don't get me wrong, this is a big step in the right direction. But it's a stretch to call it a 24/7 plant.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. A stretch to call it a 24/7 plant.

If it’s producing power 24/7…

Would you say that a nuclear plant is a 24/7 plant? (Even though they are routinely taken off-line for such things as maintenance.)

http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/documentlibrary/reliableandaffordableenergy/graphicsandcharts/usnuclearindustrycapacityfactors

U.S. Nuclear Industry Capacity Factors (1971 - 2010)

Over the past two decades, nuclear power plants have achieved increasingly higher capacity factors with the same or greater levels of safety. The average capacity factor for U.S. plants in operation in 1980 was 56.3 percent; in 1990, 66 percent; and in 2010, 91.2 percent.

[FBaggins]

8. There's a difference between "maintenance" and things you have no control over.

If it’s producing power 24/7…

And the point is that is isn't. Or rather... it might one week and not the next... and then go months without actually providing 24/7.

With most baseload plants (not just nuclear), you can count on actual 24/7 performance for months at a time and know in advance when they won't be available (allowing you to plan the maintenance cycles of your entire portfolio to ensure reliable power delivery year-round).

With this plant you don't really know whether you'll have 24/7 power for all of next week... let alone the next month.

But there are some leaps forward here. That should not be discounted just because the announcement is a little over-hyped.

[OKIsItJustMe]

9. Of course, nuclear plants also have unplanned outages

http://www.wind-works.org/FeedLaws/Japan/FukushimaNuclearYeartoYearReliabilityandGermanWind.html

…

The Fukushima 1 plants generated, on average, 30 TWh per year. The key word here is "on average". Despite nuclear power's reputation as reliable base load generation, the Fukushima plants were anything but reliable over the four decades that the plants were in operation. Annual generation was surprisingly erratic or "lumpy" in the jargon of the trade.

Take Unit 6, the most modern unit, for example. In 2004 generation dropped from 4.6 TWh in 2003 to 1.1 TWh, and both were a far cry from the reported generation in 1997 of more than 9 TWh. That's a lot of generation offline for even a big system like that in Japan that requires 1,000 TWh per year.

Similarly, Unit 5's generation fell from 6.2 TWh in 1999 to 1.6 TWh in 2000.
But not just generation from individual units varied significantly from one-year to the next. Combined generation from Fukushima 1 also fluctuated from one year to the next. The safety shutdown at Fukushima 1 cut generation by two-thirds or nearly 20 TWh from 2002 to 2003. Generation didn't return to normal levels until as late as 2007.

…

“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_Two">Solar Two” had a much smaller ("three hour") storage capacity than the Gemasolar plant and yet…

http://www.sandia.gov/csp/cspoverview.html

… The Solar Two plant was a retrofit of Solar One to demonstrate the advantages of molten salt for heat transfer and thermal storage. Utilizing its highly efficient molten-salt energy storage system, Solar Two successfully demonstrated efficient collection of solar energy and dispatch of electricity, including the ability to routinely produce electricity during cloudy weather and at night. In one demonstration, it delivered power to the grid 24 hours per day for nearly 7 straight days before cloudy weather interrupted operation.

…

[FBaggins]

10. Sure... just not nearly as many.

“Solar Two” had a much smaller ("three hour") storage capacity than the Gemasolar plant and yet…

And yet? And yet "cloudy weather interrupted operation".

That's the major difference. You can lose power even when nothing at all is wrong with the plant. Nothing broken and all functions fully available... yet no power.

The good news is that this technology dramatically improves the frequency of this problem.

[OKIsItJustMe]

13. One thing people typically misunderstand is that "X hours of storage"

The “3 hour” storage of “Solar Two” didn’t mean that 3 hours after the Sun set (or went behind a cloud) the plant shut down. The “3 hours of storage” allows you to run the generating turbine at 100% for 3 hours with no sunlight.

If the turbine is run at less than 100% or, if there’s some sunlight, the “3 hours of storage” will carry you longer than 3 hours. (Power demand fluctuates; you don’t always need to run at 100%.)

The “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Tres_Power_Tower">Solar Tres” plant went with a larger storage capacity (“15 hours.”)

Why not go with a still larger storage capacity? Because the larger the storage, the greater the cost of the plant (and by extension, the greater the cost of the electricity.)

If there were no other generating plants in existence, it might make sense to build a larger storage capacity, but the truth is, there are plenty of other plants on the grid to make up for any fluctuations, and these fluctuations will not be unpredictable. (We’ve gotten pretty good at weather forecasts.)

As good fortune would have it, at those times when the Gemasolar plant is producing the least amount of power, Spain’s wind farms will likely be producing peak power.

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. See also

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=302975&mesg_id=302975

[pscot]

11. Zero fuel cost, Zero CO2 emissions

Sounds like a winner.

[FBaggins]

12. Once they can get the price down, yes.

But it needs to drop significantly.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Not really…

http://www.wri.org/publication/juice-from-concentrate

Staley, Britt Childs, Jenna Goodward, Clay Rigdon, and Andrew MacBride. 2009. Juice From Concentrate: Reducing Emissions with Concentrating Solar Thermal Power. Washington, DC: World Resources Institute. Available online: http://www.wri.org/publication/juice-from-concentrate

In the case of a concentrating solar plant (similar to a nuclear fission plant) the costs are mostly (up-front) capital costs. Operating costs are relatively small.


Naturally, the cost of other energy sources, dependent on non-renewable fuels (oil, gas, uranium) will be increasing with time.

[FBaggins]

17. Yes.... really.

The cost of this plant was roughly $20-24 Billion per GW of capacity (depending on which exchange rate you select). Multiple times what a reactor would cost in the same location and many times what a gas, coal, or hydro plant would cost. And none of those baseload options would have as low a capacity factor or suffer from the same intermittency (a factor that it reduced substantially by this plant, but by no means eliminated. One overcast day and you're quickly out of stored heat).

Yes, of course, fuel needs to be considered as part of the equation (though it's by no means "natural" that those costs will increase over time), but $20billion/GW is far more expensive than any other option even accounting for a lifetime of fuel.

The good news is that there's no reason to believe that the price needs to stay that high.

[txlibdem]

16. Too late to Rec, but here's a kick - thanks for a great article, question though

I like the capacity factor but they didn't really explain why it was 75%. Denver, for example, gets 300 days per year of cloudless days which is 82%. The desert southwest in the USA gets that many cloudless days if not more. Is the weather in Spain to blame?