Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

I guess it depends on what loads they run it up to. But 8 hours of night time generation might be based on a nominal rating of say, 75 MW?

I'm looking at that number of $650,000,000 and thinking it's crazy expensive... Like there's a typo or something.

I found this: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/studies/powerplants/capitalcost/pdf/capcost_assumption.pdf
2016 data on the installed costs of power generation in the USA.

Page 7 lists the installed cost per MW -

Natural gas between $700 and $1100 per nominal MW installed
Onshore Wind - $1900 per MW
Solar PV (fixed or tracking) about $2700 per MW
Battery storage about $2800 per MW
Coal fired generation between $3000 and $5000 per MW
Advanced nuclear reactors about $6000 per MW

It refers to a 2013 study for solar thermal power and puts it at $5400 per MW.

However $650,000,000 / 150 MW is $4,330,000/MW. Which is crazy high... :?

Those eia figures are $/kW not $/MW .
So the Thermal solar at $650m for 150MW , puts it at $4,330 $/kW.....better than the eia figure, but still much more than PV.
BUT, again those are "nameplate" (max) capacity figures, so really that 150MW installed solar is only equivalent to 50-60 MW of gas or hydro or Nuclear generation.
I dont know how they can include Battery cost in $/kW. when is not a prime source ?

Hillhater said:

Those eia figures are $/kW not $/MW .

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Should have gone to Specsavers...

That makes a lot more sense. So about the same cost as coal, with lower power... Hmm, more PV and battery seems like a smarter choice, but the running costs shouldn't be all that high.

yes , similar Capital cost to coal..but with a lot less output !
It better to compare LCOE ( Levelised cost per MWh ) , which also includes running (operational, maintenance, fuel etc) costs...even if there is a lot of mixed info around.
Wiki has a page for LCOE data from most relevant countries..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#Australia
The USA table includes Thermal solar as having a higher LCOE than Nuclear. !

According to this news article it seems capable of more than 135 MW:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/south-australia-energy-plan-port-augusta-will-be-home-to-new-650-million-solar-thermal-power-plant/news-story/857bd46f35b44689846cfbd04a5af54b
Who'd have thought?! - 'Tiser had the most relevant information!

"SolarReserve will build the 150MW plant, which will be operational in about three years. Its standard output under normal conditions will be 135MW, with the capability of exceeding that during the evening peak demand in favourable conditions."

Depends how they define normal I guess...

135MW, sure, at mid day in January !.....
..or at anytime they want to use the heat store/generator at its maximum !
but it cannot do that continuously.
from the original ABC article..

Aurora facts:
150-megawatt solar thermal power with eight hours of storage
Plant will deliver 495 gigawatt hours of power annually, or 5 per cent of SA's energy needs
Equivalent to powering more than 90,000 homes
Located 30 kilometres north of Port Augusta
Company says it is "completely emission free"

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so 495 GWh annually is 56MW continuous, or if its only a 16 hr supply period per day..85 MW average ..but highly variable !
without knowing its Solar harvesting capacity , storage capacity, or generating capacity, in more detail, its hard to say exactly what it can do within those headline figures.
EDIT
actually.. assuming that 495GWh/yr is real data, that would give 1,356 MWh per day.
..And with an average of say 6.5hrs sun per day, then we can estimate a Solar capacity of 210 MW ..?
.Im guessing the difference between that and the "nameplate" 150MW capacity, is likely the conversion efficiency and/or the generating capacity. ?

Hillhater said:

Not quite 24/7....its only planned to have 8-10hrs of storage ?

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Seems like pretty much one person in this whole thread holding down the fort of reason, Nice job.
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Until storage solutions can carry several days, intermittents can never be more than a small percentage of any grid without baseload provided by traditional generation. Our energy consumption is immense. The storage will have to be immense.

Been reading about South Australias thermal solar molten salt power-station.
There has only been one other molten salt power-station that has been done in the "tower" configuration, a few more in the parabolic configuration which seems to be far more popular with the water/steam based solar thermal generators but I guess if you have little water then molten salt is your only choice.
Tower based Crescent Dunes molten salt power-station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project
https://goo.gl/maps/bwZ7cLxQ9r92
This Crescents tower based molten salt power-station is pretty much what we will get from the SA one, this USA one may be still technically bigger at 676 ha vs the 600ha (6km2) quoted by SolarReserve CEO Kevin Smith for the SA project.
The Capacity factor has been 16.1% which is about 4% lower than the Ivanpah thermal solar project.
There was a leak in a molten salt tank of the Crescents project but they almost got a solid year of operation. Taking its 12 months of total operation 130,842 MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 15MW average power.
Construction cost USD $0.975 billion or $1.24billion AUD

Parabolic based Solana molten salt power-station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solana_Generating_Station
This $2billion USD power-station based on the quite different parabolic method works a lot better.
2016 totaled: 643,670MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 73MW average power output.
https://goo.gl/maps/9zKdXCFsZwA2

Tower based Ivanpah solar water power-station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility#Description
Ivanpah 1
255,655MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 29MW average power output
Ivanpah 2
199,682MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 22MW average power output
Ivanpah 3
247,702MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 28MW average power output

The 3 towers based combined at the construction cost of $2.2 billion USD
2016 3 towers total generation: 703,039MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 80MW average power output
Some of the other interesting things to note about these types of power-stations is they often consume gas or electricity in the morning to get them fired up. The gas used for the Ivanpah to get it fired up and pumping could of generated about 25% more electricity in MWh if it had just been used in a regular power-station.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility#Fossil_fuel_consumption
https://goo.gl/maps/R9yUfjo5qn32

There was a lot of argument about the actual number of flying birds being barbecued alive while going through the solar farm at 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit [540 °C], it was originally estimated about 3,500 by folks that liked renewable energy but inefficiencies of the completely fried carcass-counting was disputed.
It was then settled at 6000 birds burned alive a year by federal biologists.
Quote "In September 2016, federal biologists said about 6,000 birds die from collisions or immolation annually while chasing flying insects around the facility’s towers."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility#Birds

A crusty old medium sized 1960's coal 1600MW power-station for reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station
12,000,000 MWh / 8760_hours_in_a_year = 1369MW average power output, almost 100 times more power than the SA concentrated solar molten salt farm may end up producing or around %1 of Hazelwood.

All up what I really admire about the USA renewable energy projects on Wikipedia is how transparent they are, while a super hard core anti-renewables person could still poke holes of missing information (for example the Solana project has no "Capacity factor" number) overall these pages are far more complete with data than other projects/websites etc. Who knows how much the world will be better off due to this openness and honesty. When looking at other projects on Wikipedia for other countries there's no construction or total cost and no MWh's generated or if there is its pulled from dubious websites where its a 404 error link that comparatively make "reneweconomy.com.au" look more honest and official than the FBI.

While it was an amusing quip storey that a "green" SA recycling company had to shut its doors after many years of operation due to a $100k+ monthly or $1 million dollar plus increase in annual electricity bills because it was just too expensive to recycle any more, its now becoming a national issue. And looking at SA's new power generation plans I don't think they are going to have affordable electricity to start recycling again.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/jobs/recycling-firm-to-shut-35-jobs-lost-as-sa-government-ignores-plea-for-help-over-soaring-power-bills/news-story/d24d29ce9ba072d5adbc4d47ab06f4b9
Recycling firm to shut, 35 jobs lost, as SA government ignores plea for help over soaring power bills

This is now becoming a national issue as all of Australia except for WA is on the same interstate grid as SA sucks more power from the other states while pretending its power comes from renewables combined with other states shutting down coal power-stations for silly reasons its driving up electricity costs Australia wide to the point that its now completely unviable to recycle glass etc anywhere in Australia and it now just gets illegally dumped, often in nature reserve parks.
http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2017/08/07/4711891.htm
It appears that Facebook renewable meme's did not factor in viable recycling when they made those easily absorbable pictures of how great it all is, what will we do.
Like looking at a lot of these renewable energy projects on Wikipedia I am often left quietly speechless on how crappy they are, but I found a solution, just make a better more outrageous meme for it to share on Facebook etc to make it look better.



No post is complete without a youtube video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2dYayn0McA
[youtube]Z2dYayn0McA[/youtube]

I think the Solana " solar in a straw" parabolic is about as good as solar plus storage gets right now but even in the high desert it can only manage 74 MW average for $2Billion. And doesn't store 1/2 a day. SolarStar in the Cali desert is high quality crystaline panels on trackers with an automated wash system and has been averaging about 30% of it's nameplate capacity for 180 MW but has no storage. And I can't find any data on the actual price of construction. Solar advocates often quote price versus installed capacity which must be substantialy reduced to reflect real world output.
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Solar PV farms or roof tops are ok to help with the peak afternoon cooling needs in summer but our hunger for baseload is immense.

SOLAR:
Using the Topaz Solar Farm as a reference, you would have to cover about 1% of the USA in solar panels to satisfy it's electricity needs, not counting the essential issue of time shifting power. That's 36,000 sq mi or about the size of the state of Kentucky.

COAL:
Using the Robert Scherer Power Plant as a reference, it makes 17 times as much annual power as Topaz and occupies roughly 1/9 as much land. You'd only have to cover 219 sq mi in power plants and they could be built on the east coast where the power is predominantly used.


The cost of nuclear power is essentially infinite since it's impossible to clean up the contamination of the regular meltdowns. We can't even clean up Hanford and they didn't even have a meltdown. Fukushima continues to spew contamination to this day. I think you'd have to be an actual environmental terrorist to promote nuclear power.

Nuclear.... There are potential (not yet commercial) "Nuclear" systems that do not have the radiation/contamination issues of the conventional Nuclear generators.
Infact, some of these systems actually consume spent fuel from conventional reactors and use it to safely produce power.
"Gen 4" ..low pressure liquid salt reactors are under development in many countries as a likely safe source of future power generation. Currently these are not fully developed and are not yet financially competitive.
Ironicly , it has been suggested that development of some of these systems has been delayed due to the lack of funding from certain governments because these systems do not produce potential weapons grade materials !

Hillhater said:

it has been suggested that development of some of these systems has been delayed due to the lack of funding from certain governments because these systems do not produce potential weapons grade materials !

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Going all the way back to 1970. We turned our back on Molten Salt Reactors for that reason.
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3 TW average continuous electrical consumption worldwide. How much storage does that require to go full intermittents?. One day storage is 75 TWh. And we are supposed to transition all transportation to electric. And heat. And Industry. Currently 10 TW. And will double again in 70 years. We must be pragmatic. Let's run the numbers.
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http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/
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^^^ thanks for that link sendler2112, ..an excellent , easily readable article.
Some of the numbers may need a little updating, but the overall picture is the same and hard to argue against for anyone who is honest with themselves.
I am surprised they considered the Solar Thermal option as one of the lowest cost renewable sources,..thats certainly not the way it comes out in most LCOE data.
I would suggest they somehow need to "re-brand" the emerging MSR technology to distance it from the tainted "Nuclear" label, to avoid the inevitable debates that would attract.

I've been a fan of geothermal energy for years. The amount of heat beneath the earth's surface is staggering, potentially clean and nearly universal. How costly to develop and explore is the question, right now seems limited only to certain areas where the heat is closest to the surface. I envision offshore undersea plants producing abundant electricic power and fresh water from seawater.

Yet another Thermal Solar power plant planned for South Australia ??
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-04/solar-thermal-power-station-solastor-plan-port-augusta/7476968
..slightly different technology, Graphite/water, but this one is stated to be a 24/7 generator , and modular, such that it can be scalled up from 100MW initial capacity , to 500MW eventually..
$1.2 bn total cost !
https://www.newint.com.au/blog/24-hour-solar-on-demand-an-update-on-solastor-plans-for-port-augusta/
I suspect all of these planned projects are going to be fighting for the same pot of Government funding to enable them to proceed.

Hillhater said:

Yet another Thermal Solar power plant planned for South Australia ??
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-04/solar-thermal-power-station-solastor-plan-port-augusta/7476968
..slightly different technology, Graphite/water, but this one is stated to be a 24/7 generator , and modular, such that it can be scalled up from 100MW initial capacity , to 500MW eventually..
$1.2 bn total cost !
https://www.newint.com.au/blog/24-hour-solar-on-demand-an-update-on-solastor-plans-for-port-augusta/
I suspect all of these planned projects are going to be fighting for the same pot of Government funding to enable them to proceed.

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I found this article talk about it too its from a while ago now, but shows they have been preping this stuff for a while now http://reneweconomy.com.au/hewson-backed-company-plans-170mw-solar-thermal-baseload-power-plant-for-port-augusta-76729/

Yeah seems like everyones firing up a clean energy company to grab dem dollars.

Maybe an ex-liberal politician getting his fingers over that money might even put some people off renewable energy, the level people are politically charged continues to fascinate me.
I largely see folks who are hardcore renewable energy only believe in it as far as it can be used of wielded as a politcal sword against the parties they dislike, whether it works or is even remotely value for money comes second and third.
This is why I think if projects like the Bill Gates Terra nuclear power project take off than its going to crush "energy being used for political power". Right now the benchmark is that if SA's $650million solar thermal farm (which is dubiously cheap compared to the USA ones) only manages to generate %1 of the power of Hazelwood can you could argue that people will be happy with it but I think as the electricity bills never stop going up they are going to be brute forced to think for themselves and eventually change their minds.

The sad twisted reality is that when the Terra power project takes off there wont be any more for Australia to spend on silly solar thermal projects etc anymore because there will be no coal exports and thus no money coming into the country, a lot of Australias national debt which is funded from overseas wont consider Australia nearly as credit worthy without coal to sell. Australias economy is still incredibly linked to trickle down money flows from the government.
I worked at an tech company in Australia where we provided services to the biggest overseas mobile carriers around the world and each month they would wire millions of dollars for our services and I realized how a rare thing it was to be in a company that actually brings money into Australia from overseas. We have no Intel, Tesla's or even a McDonalds where they export stuff to the world, Intel brings in billions from around the world.
It will always just be coal that makes Australia power on everyday and its the one thing everyone here wants to see die. No manufacturing will even come back in Australia because the core thing you need is cheap energy and thats now the very last thing we have, because we wanted it that way.

You know something is seriously wrong when even the strong proponents of a project admit and explain how that project is not financially viable !
The declared max cost of power from the SA Thermal Solar plant (Au$78 MWh), was a surprise to many when it was announced, even allowing for $110m of grants, but those suspicions have now been confirmed by financial professionals
http://reneweconomy.com.au/know-your-nem-will-the-lret-be-met-36957/ (Part way down the page)
So somewhere there is "hidden" $$s supporting this project on an ongoing basis,...ultimately from Ozzy tax payers no doubt, but in what form.?
Im equally sure similar financial arrangements are in play for many of the other Solar & Wind projects that are now popping up like weeds around Australia, as few of them stand up to any conventional financial analysis that wouls be applied to a commercial investment (most are PE projects)

Yeah if they described the project as an experimental plant that will produce useful energy then fair enough. But personally I'd have thought a few big batteries to back up the wind and PV already installed would be better use of funds.

Without battery storage or pumped hydro storage, there will be a limit to how much PV and wind you can install on our current electricity grid before you start getting problems. SA is at the very end of the line and has been the first to feel the effects.

Still, the molten salt storage system does have plenty of room to grow into its boots, and there are plenty of ways for costs to come down just like PV has. It has to start somewhere, and Port Augusta is as good a place as any. In the meantime they really ought to install some batteries and start building reservoirs in the hills...

If there are hills, I would support railroad/ gravity storage. Based on already well known technology.
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http://www.aresnorthamerica.com/grid-scale-energy-storage
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if renewable s are to be the future primary source of power, then storage (or some other clean energy source) will have to dramatically increase..and be factored into the costs.
There are many possible options for storage, but the only proven, commercially operating, (utility scale) system is Pumped Hydro...and i dont believe even that has ever been used for total grid base load support, only for Peak demand support.
For Australia, currently the minimum night time grid load is of the order of18 GW , but more like a 20GW average for the 10 or so hours overnight..so 200 GWhs of "baseload" power needed.
Wind could certainly help for some of this, but again its inconsistent/unpredictable ( <2GW average output last year ),..so either we need a lot more P hydro ( unlikely due to topology and costs ) or another solution.
Added to the situation, much of out case load coal power generation is due for replacement soon and a typically messy political situation is preventing their replacement, to the extent that heavy industries are getting very worries about power security and prices ( they have been told to expect 100% increase in costs in the next year or two. ! there is not enough time to build enough P Hydro, even if we had the sites and money.
Battery farms would seem to be the only vaguely viable option for that scale of storage in the short term , 5-10 yrs, but even that really pushes the bounds of comprehension for 100-200GWh of capacity ! ..
..that 1000 times bigger than the biggest proposed so far !
..

Hillhater said:

Battery farms would seem to be the only vaguely viable option for that scale of storage in the short term , 5-10 yrs, but even that really pushes the bounds of comprehension for 100-200GWh of capacity ! ..
..that 1000 times bigger than the biggest proposed so far !
..

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That would be 3-6 years worth of the entire battery production from Gigafactory1. Just for the night load of Australia. Japan, Russia, And India each use 5 times that. The EU is another 14 times. The USA is 20 times. China is 30 times. The world in total is using 100 times the electricity of Australia. The world total will double again by 2060. 120TWh per day. You want to try to store half of that in batteries just to get through one night? Store it by any means just to get through one night? How much Cobalt do we have?
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People have no realistic idea of the immensity of our energy consumption. And how this is tied to economy. Solar is fine to offset the peak for cooling but intermittents can't do baseload. We need to figure out Gen4 nuclear. There has been very little research since 1970. And get cracking if we really want to get off of coal.

Some of the financial slight of hand behind the South Australian "Aurora" Thermal Solar project has been unearthed....

...... the difference between what the government will pay SolarReserve ($75-$78/MWh), and what SolarReserve will receive, and will likely serve as a template for more “dispatchable” renewable energy projects in the future.
Essentially, Solar Reserve will provide the S.A. government with some of its needs from other sources in the market when demand and the price is low. Aurora will cover the government for energy and prices when the government’s demand is at its highest, around the middle of the day.
But because the government can and will get some cheap power elsewhere, Aurora will be able store its solar power in its molten salt storage tanks so it can sell into the market at the system peaks, in late afternoon and early evening, when the market prices are highest, boosting its revenue.

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http://reneweconomy.com.au/why-solar-towers-and-storage-plants-will-reshape-energy-markets-73278/
So, $78 MWh is not the real cost of power, as Solar Reserve will be able to sell their power into the super expensive peak time spot market, and the SA Government is free to buy cheap power from the market during low cost periods.
This whole deal is arranged to provide only the SA Gov with a capped price power contract for use in its own facilities.
It will have little effect on the open market power pricing.
To me, this looks a lot like misuse of public money and federal grant funds

Does anyone understand Concentrated Solar thermal Technology.. ?
My understanding ( little) is that it requires clear sky sunshine to generate heat to store, effectively.
so these plants are located on good locations to maximise full sun exposure...high deserts etc.
....But, this plant proposed for Australia, Port Augusta, doesnt seem to adhere to that requirement.
Data i can find on line suggests Port Augusta averages approx 110 hours of sunlight per month ( min 59, max 141)
and has on average about 10 days a month with no direct open sunshine at all ( in some months, there are 15 or more days with no sun !) ..Its a town at sea level between two ranges of high hills, so it is understandable .
https://www.worldweatheronline.com/port-augusta-weather-averages/south-australia/au.aspx
I am sure you could compensate for reduced sunshine hours to some extent by having a larger collector field, but there must be some limit to the rate at which you reheat the storage medium, and it would directly impact the capital and operating costs ,
..but it also means there is much more "dark time" to cover with the limited storage capacity(8-10 hrs)
..and of course, with so many days where there is no sunshine, what happens when 3-4 or more days consecutive bad weather hits town ?
This doesnt seem like a good location for a Solar Tower plant. ?

Hillhater said:

This doesnt seem like a good location for a Solar Tower plant. ?

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Well it is easily the only town of a sizeable population in Australia which is in a high irradiance zone and part of the National Electricity Market. Alice Springs might be a better town in terms of sunshine, but it's an isolated grid with limited skilled workers handy.

I guess 8 hours of evening production is going to be ideal for the evening peak; after 1 am the load will drop right back. We'll never ever know if we never build one, but it's risky I gotta say.

That is correct. 10 hours with no sun and it is done. If it has been 20 hours or more, there will be a big start up energy to pay also before everything gets hot enough again. Andasol is a trough/ sodium concentrated solar plant with 7.5 hours of thermal storage in Spain and is located in a high desert. All of these solar farms are just toys at this point. Experiments to see what they can do.At least thermal solar is smooth. Unilike PV and wind. And they could probably be built such that the steam turbines switch to natural gas when the sun doesn't shine.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andasol_Solar_Power_Station
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SolarStar in California is a state of the art photvoltaic farm. Has no storage. So even a cloud coming over will cause the ouput to drop.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Star
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