World's Largest Solar Plant - a Mishap

[Cow Poke]

http://gizmodo.com/the-world-s-large...elf-1777767880

This solar plant has fascinated me - I've been watching its progress.

solar plant.jpg

(and, no, this is not an anti-solar rant )

[rogue06]

A couple of other news stories:

AP: Mirrors blamed for fire at world's largest solar plant

Popular Mechanics: World's Largest Solar Plant Sets Itself on Fire

Interesting to note that Google is a major backer investing $168 million in the venture

[Cow Poke]

I remember when they were building this, one of the concerns of the opposition was that the mirrors would malfunction and fry an airplane.

[37818]

Wind towers and concentrated solar towers will kill birds.

http://blogs.dnvgl.com/energy/the-fu...c-power-plants

Then there are solar panel power plants.
http://www.solarinsure.com/largest-solar-power-plants

There are parabolic trough pwer plants
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~wang30y/csp/PTPP.html

The parabolic thermal solar plants are less likely to harm birds.
http://www.solar-thermal.com/solar_vs_pv.html

[Cow Poke]

Wind towers and concentrated solar towers will kill birds.

http://blogs.dnvgl.com/energy/the-fu...c-power-plants

Then there are solar panel power plants.
http://www.solarinsure.com/largest-solar-power-plants

There are parabolic trough pwer plants
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~wang30y/csp/PTPP.html

The parabolic thermal solar plants are less likely to harm birds.
http://www.solar-thermal.com/solar_vs_pv.html

Let's please keep this thread on the discussion of this solar plant, OK? Like I said in the OP - (and, no, this is not an anti-solar rant )

[Teallaura]

Real plants manage to convert solar energy without setting anything on fire - maybe direct conversion isn't a great idea?

[37818]

I'm not anti-solar. I'm pro-solar. Solar panels. Parabolic mirror thermal solar power.

[Truthseeker]

Real plants manage to convert solar energy without setting anything on fire - maybe direct conversion isn't a great idea?

What do you mean specifically by real plants? Solar PV (photovoltaics)?

direct conversion from DC to AC?

[JonathanL]

What do you mean specifically by real plants? Solar PV (photovoltaics)?

direct conversion from DC to AC?

I think she's talking about 'plants' as in vegetation...

[rogue06]

What do you mean specifically by real plants? Solar PV (photovoltaics)?

direct conversion from DC to AC?

biological plants that utilize photosynthesis.

[TheLurch]

Solar thermal is an interesting tech, because it can store the heat in various ways, allowing it to generate electricity for hours after the sun sets. It solves one of the problems with photovoltaics, which is that there's a big surge in demand at about 7pm in the evening when everybody gets home from work and starts cooking, puts their TVs on, etc. There are even people working on different heat storage material that could let it generate around-the-clock, turning it into a form of baseline power.

But it's got big economic problems. About a decade ago, when the planning for big plants like Ivanpah started, photovoltaics were very expensive, and nobody saw a way that they would come down in price quickly. So solar thermal was thought to have a chance to be a big player for utility-scale generation. But the prices of PV panels have dropped so much that installation and permitting is now the largest cost of a PV install - the panels themselves are down to under a third of the total cost.

So, solar thermal has pretty much ground to a halt, at least in the US. Unless we can figure out a policy to financially incentivize its good properties (there are a couple of others, from the grid stability perspective), it's hard to see anything like Ivanpah being built again.

[Cow Poke]

Solar thermal is an interesting tech, because it can store the heat in various ways, allowing it to generate electricity for hours after the sun sets. It solves one of the problems with photovoltaics, which is that there's a big surge in demand at about 7pm in the evening when everybody gets home from work and starts cooking, puts their TVs on, etc. There are even people working on different heat storage material that could let it generate around-the-clock, turning it into a form of baseline power.

But it's got big economic problems. About a decade ago, when the planning for big plants like Ivanpah started, photovoltaics were very expensive, and nobody saw a way that they would come down in price quickly. So solar thermal was thought to have a chance to be a big player for utility-scale generation. But the prices of PV panels have dropped so much that installation and permitting is now the largest cost of a PV install - the panels themselves are down to under a third of the total cost.

So, solar thermal has pretty much ground to a halt, at least in the US. Unless we can figure out a policy to financially incentivize its good properties (there are a couple of others, from the grid stability perspective), it's hard to see anything like Ivanpah being built again.

That's actually interesting. Worth reading, even!

(not that I'm terribly surprised )

[Truthseeker]

Unless we can figure out a policy to financially incentivize its good properties (there are a couple of others, from the grid stability perspective), it's hard to see anything like Ivanpah being built again.

The economy has to make the decisions freely whether to build up solar thermal systems or not, because it naturally generates the prices of whatever are offered in the market. Socialism cannot generate prices without guessing. That practically does not work because there are a great number of guesses to be made in (more-or-less) real time.

Also there are many more problems than the economics of solar thermal storage to consider as well.

[Sparko]

So how do we know this isn't some evil scientist's Heat Ray, built to destroy an entire city and blow planes out of the sky?

Has anyone seen rogue06?

[TheLurch]

The economy has to make the decisions freely whether to build up solar thermal systems or not, because it naturally generates the prices of whatever are offered in the market. Socialism cannot generate prices without guessing. That practically does not work because there are a great number of guesses to be made in (more-or-less) real time.

Also there are many more problems than the economics of solar thermal storage to consider as well.

See, that's not actually true, as this is one case where the market completely obscures the value of things. Let me go into one of the details hinted at above.

Grid stability depends in part on inertia. We generate most of our power through large hunks of spinning metal. As demand changes, it takes some time for that metal to change its speed, which turns what would otherwise be a sudden spike into a a slow curve. That gives grid operators time to respond by brining additional power sources on line.

Photovoltaics, while cheaper at generating power, have no inertia - there are absolutely no moving parts (which is part of why they're so cheap - minimal maintenance). So they don't help grid stability at all.

Right now, there's no way for the market to recognize the value of grid stability, and therefore no way to reward the contribution of inertia towards grid stability. Even though the costs of power outages, spread across thousands of businesses, can be enormous. So, we need to find a way to provide incentives for inertia, so that the true value of solar thermal ends up recognized. The alternative is kissing grid stability goodbye, as photovoltaic prices are now competing with natural gas, and the prices keep going down.

The market's the best way of working a lot of things. But we shouldn't pretend it's perfect or works in every single situation. We've seen plenty of cases where it needs intervention to function in a way that it's a net positive for society as a whole.