Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Hillhater]

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.

Sure, but if you want 8 hours of evening power, you are going to have to "Charge" it up during the day..
What if you only have 4 hours of sun ?
What if you have only 2 hours of sun ?
what if you have no sun...for 2-3 days ! ?

I admit i dont fully understand the relationship between irradiance data, and sunlight hours,.. but im pretty sure these plants need full sun to work effectively.
Again, peak evening load is 2+ GW, so this 135 MW is hardly the ultimate solution, ( when/if its available) and the off peak low ( 3am) is never less than 800MW. !
..Gonna" need some more salt !

EDIT
OK, i think i have got my head around the financial strategy on this one now !
remember ,..Solar Reserve (SR), have contracted to supply power at $78 /MWh to SA Gov. facilities.
but they are able to source and sell on the open "spot" market also.
Now, typical off peak low market price is approx $85, and spot peak price is $200-300 + ( and has been in the $1000s !)
So if SR "buy" 1300 MW power at say,.. $100 , and sell that to SAGov at $78 they are down $22 /MW
But they can then "Sell" their own stored 1300 MW into the peak market at (conservatively) ,..$200 MWh, so they are effectively making $178 /MWh , or (x 1300), ..= $231,000 per day !
..and it could be much more depending on those peak prices . !
Nice eh ?..SA Gov get their personal supply below market price, and fixed at that. whilst AR are making more than enough to make a profit.
Meanwhile the rest of S Australia is left out of the deal .

 

[TheBeastie]

Yeah well I wouldn't think too deeply about how it would be viable or not, I think the $650million AUD price is dubiously cheap compared to any other molten salt solar thermal power-stations around the world.
Theres already a Wikipedia page for it, probably that federal $110million has probably already been transferred to the SA gov and then sent off to Solar Reserve to get things going.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_Solar_Thermal_Power_Project
You can also see the spot where its going to be built.
https://goo.gl/maps/GJ4f4G6Fod32

Looking at the most recent project SolarReserve are doing is this non-tower based parabolic solar thermal power station in Africa.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_Solar_Thermal_Power
Its interesting to note that the Nameplate capacity of 100 MW and the Annual output 480 GW·h (planned) is similar to the expected 495 GW·h from the SA thermal solar project, but the nameplate capacity of the SA project is 150MW.
Also its interesting to note that this project being $715 million USD ($905,762,000 AUD) is still so much more expensive than the SA project, I can't help but guess that the SA project will want a injection of money to get finished or maybe they plan on making the money back by selling the power.

I was just looking at http://reneweconomy.com.au/ website and couldn't help but find the latest article headline funny while looking at South Australia's current renewable solar and wind energy generation stats on the side of the webpage.
With the headline of "Australia urged to aim for 100% renewables by 2030s" and looking at the state current generation stats of SA which is frequently touted as being 50% renewables ( https://goo.gl/uhUnHn ) sitting there on almost 10 times the fossil fuel gas at 1496·MW than its wind power of just 137·MW, actually since typing this the wind power has now dropped to 126·MW. The icing on the cake is SA sucking an extra 750MWs of coal power from Victorian interstate grid,which is invisible from the charts.
Aside from having the most expensive electricity prices in the world, it's also not really showing it working that great.


As with that article about a Chinese company trialing a 10MW tower CSP, it really looks like there just doing it to sell overseas.
Sometimes when I look at how Obama and Trump have directly accused China of being a currency manipulator to gain competitive edge it can also be just as effective on having competition edge for an economy to just have cheap power, by building this uncompetitive stuff in overseas countries helps cement in the competitive edge.
http://www.suncancn.com/news_en/show-57-55-1.html
Except a small part of equipment that needs to be imported from abroad, almost all the core equipment will be purchased from China or self-sufficient, realizing a localization rate of 90%.

 

[sendler2112]

Look at the production of the solar tower in Nevada. It's first full year of production saw 16% of the nameplate capacity. If they can get it to 40% like they are getting in Spain. It will average 40MW. For $0.975 Billion. Twice the price of a new Gen3+ nuclear plant that can actually do base load. Somehow they struck a deal which forces the electrical company to buy their output at $0.13/ KWh. The cost of my electricity supply minus all fees, line fees, and taxes, just the supply cost, is billed at $.0385 right now because Pennsylvania is fracking so much gas. So in the end the electric company will have to pass on that cost to the consumer.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project
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[Hillhater]

Thebeastie..
That Redstone project on SAfrica is a Solar Tower the same as proposed for Australia...a Solar Tower + salt storage.
But, there are a few differences..
Redstone (Kimberly) is on the High Velt , 5000' elevation, which means its climate is very sunny and dry, desert conditions again like the Spanish project and Cresent Dunes (4000' elevation). ....consequently i suspect they do not need as much collector capacity as in Port Augusta, with its limited sunshine hours.
Also, they may well have designed it with small turbine generators (100MW) because they intend it to run longer (12 hrs) after sundown, so they do not need the higher "peak" capacity, which the Port Augusta plant is intended for.
Its like haveing the same size battery, but using a lower power motor to give more run time , you end up with the same MWh per day.
Also, note the power costs. ..$124/MWh base rate, and x270% ($335 ?), for peak rates (US$, i assume too!)
Cresent Dunes, as said, also has a contractd power price of us$135 MWh.

 

[Hillhater]

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.
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Churning some numbers...
10 hours of storage for Crescent dunes is 32,000 tonnes of salt
Port augusta is similar capacity (495GW/yr) so assume similar requirement.
Reports state that it takes 2 months to initially bring that load up to working temp,
http://analysis.newenergyupdate.com/csp-today/markets/no-drama-solarreserve-commissions-worlds-largest-csp-tower-storage
and other reports suggest that 15MW are required to operate the site facilities , pumps, tracking, etc, and maintain that temp...does that seem reasonable ?
If so, that would imply that on sunless days, 360MWhs per day will be needed ... presumeably from stored energy, !
Even with a fully pre charged storage, that would only give them 3 days of no sun to play with.

 

[sendler2112]

Crescent Dunes took 4 years to build. Ran for a year off and on with three good months, And then was offline for 8 months for repairs. And looks like when it is running good in the summer it can average 38MW for 35% of the nameplate capacity. For $1 Billion. It takes 25 of these to average the output of one nuclear plant. Solar Star is averaging 200MW with PV panels but I can't find a good report of what it cost. It has no storage.

 

[Hillhater]

I dont know weather to cry or larf at this ...
Birds being "smoked" by a solar tower..
It is like watching a Battle of Britain movie !
https://youtu.be/ICLXQN_lURk[youtube]ICLXQN_lURk[/youtube]

 

[sendler2112]

I wonder how many birds don't fly directly in the vapor zone, but just get cooked and fall onto the mirrors. They must have to go out and do a drone survey every night to see where to clean off the carcasses.

 

[TheBeastie]

Thebeastie..
That Redstone project on SAfrica is a Solar Tower the same as proposed for Australia...a Solar Tower + salt storage.

Yeah your right, even the Wikipedia page states "tower" multiple times on the project description https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redstone_Solar_Thermal_Power I think I had too many web pages open at the time and got confused with another project, also I was looking at the Redstone South Africa project via Googlemaps and couldn't see any tower and the currently half built solar equipment looks more like a parabolic design, but maybe it's a side project of some sort like photovoltaics.

Redstone Solar thermal Tower project on South Africa satillite view https://goo.gl/maps/Z7gWUPtDvp62

I dont know weather to cry or larf at this ...
Birds being "smoked" by a solar tower..
It is like watching a Battle of Britain movie !
https://youtu.be/ICLXQN_lURk

Yeah its amazing isn't it? There are dozens of these death ray videos on youtube. But while the rest of the world watches videos like that, instead Australia's local kings of bad media are pounding the Australian public with articles like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iOsvUamzCQ , talking about how Australia needs to jump on this and get a head of the world in renewable energy projects like this and be at the forefront of the technology and be a world leader, when its just silly mass wildlife killing crap, but because our brains are so vulnerable to bias most people just don't see how dumb it is.

[youtube]_iOsvUamzCQ[/youtube]

This is why I continue to argue that most of Australia's TV spectrum would be better off sold to 3rd tier mobile carriers or amalgamated into NBN wireless so Australians could get a real window into the real world instead of being locked into these restrictive channels and loaded up on horsesh*t. Like I said before you can see Australians are loaded with the most horsesh*t in the world by charting electricity prices as the most expensive in the world, its a "perfect chart by proxy".

They keep telling us coal is so evil but you won't find piles of dead birds around coal power-stations. But you will on windfarms. https://youtu.be/8NAAzBArYdw?t=10s , its interesting to note that most of the comments on this video argue it's the bird's fault and there is almost an even amount of people clicking on the "dislike" button, again its shows how weak the human mind is against bias.
As I mentioned in my previous post https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=200#p1312409 they were disputing the number of birds killed, and I can now see why because some of them are so vaporized there's nothing left to count, the super barbecued bird carcass left would be hard to find and that's why they needed federal biologists to step in for the count..

And that's what I fear with Port Augusta's solar farm, unlike these other solar tower projects around the world are 100's of km inland in ultra super dry areas of the world, the Port Augusta site is just 25km from the sea and is comparatively thicker richer tree and scrub than where these other projects have been placed.

Redstone project, closest road side area, very dead https://goo.gl/maps/sMcZXoHSGaw
Port Augusta project, closest road ride area, loaded with trees and probably more birds https://goo.gl/maps/356Wv7HdgfR2
It seems considerably more work is chosen with really large solar projects around the world compared to Australian sites, even completely green covered Victoria wants to cover quite green areas for solar farms, unless its on a roof or somewhere where its super dead it doesn't make sense to me, vegetation eats carbon dioxide.

Once they clear away the trees which again is really just a great natural carbon emissions sink area, they will be ultimately more environmentally destructive than coal as far as I am concerned. Just like how NASAs vegetation satellites have shown the world is getting greener due to the co2 ppm increase https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOwHT8yS1XI

I can't help but kind of imagine a comedy skit where Jay Weatherill walks into a board meeting sits down and just demands his team find the worst renewable energy producing project possible, thats the most expensive and the most hypocritically environmentally destructive project that could be built to keep everyone who gets there view of the world from local media and Facebook memes happy, and this is what the team came back with, the SA concentrated solar thermal power project.
Experts have assessed solar tower projects as being wicked mass wild-life alluring death traps.

 

[sendler2112]

Video about Crescent Dunes solar tower in Nevada.
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https://youtu.be/J3DylmjBPvo
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[jonescg]

Very cool project - thanks for the video! It's still really damn expensive though. However, like pumped hydro, it's a 9/10 for simplicity.

 

[sendler2112]

Yes. 38MW average on the best month is a miniscule payback for $1 Billion.

 

[wineboyrider]

I dont know weather to cry or larf at this ...
Birds being "smoked" by a solar tower..
It is like watching a Battle of Britain movie !
https://youtu.be/ICLXQN_lURk[youtube]ICLXQN_lURk[/youtube]

As if coal or nuclear plants don't kill?
Point is all forms of energy have a negative consequence.

 

[Hillhater]

.....However, like pumped hydro, it's a 9/10 for simplicity.

Chris, do you really think maintaining 10,000 ,, precision tracking, individual computer controlled, 100sqr mtr, mirrors, and circulating 30,000 tonnes of molten salt....together with a full steam generating plant, steam turbines, before you even get to the electrical generators........is simple ?
I just hope they dont have to "recalibrate" those mirrors very often !!
How accurate must the allignment be for a mirror to hit a target over 1/2 a mile away ?
How well can they maintain that targeting when the wind is gusting ?
...i gather there are several factors limiting the capacity of these Thermal tower plants...
? 1- Physical size of the collector field, as in the distance of the outer mirror arrays from the target, and the ability to target from those distances.
? 2- Thermal limitations...steam generating temperature/pressure is significantly less than coal, or Nuclear etc, limiting the size of the steam turbines and hence generating capacity and efficiency.
Multiple turbines to increase capacity just decreases the efficiency even more... (making the $$/kWh worse)
3- ancilliary loads are 10% of output (15MW for the SA plant ) , on a good day !. thats for all those Tracking motors, computers, control systems and multiple high power pumps for circulating that molten salt.
On a "bad" day ...part sun, part cloud, those ancilliary loads can consum most of the power generated.

The technology is interesting and will have its applications .
It will also be a huge boost for the Port Augusta employment scene and economy, but this is not the right solution for SA at this time to get more reliability and capacity into the power supply.

 

[sendler2112]

It does seem like the cheaper and simpler solution for concentrated solar would be the pipes in a trough style they used in Spain at Andasol. Here is a really good write up on Andasol. They state an average actual output of 20 MW and the cost was $0.411 Billion in 2006. So I guess the stated cost / MW is about the same as a tower. Still 2.5 times the cost of a new nuclear plant and not as reliable. Especially if they are built in non high desert areas..
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https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0ahUKEwjNgf-yvvjVAhVK4YMKHc9XANkQFggoMAA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fsam.nrel.gov%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2Fcontent%2Fcase_studies%2Fsam_case_csp_physical_trough_andasol-1_2013-1-15.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGmCohUZuBQspTsSS_uFA6rNeEZOA

 

[craneplaneguy]

Oddly enough, just last night I met a guy who is a heavy maintenance worker at a large coal fired power plant in Utah, 2 MW. 100% of it's power goes directly to California, and he claimed it was a real clean plant, as state of art as they get I guess anyway. When I flew by it today I got a closeup look of the stack and other then heat shimmers could see nothing. Whatever, in 8 years it will be shut down, as he said California will by then refuse any coal generated power.

 

[Hillhater]

As if coal or nuclear plants don't kill?
Point is all forms of energy have a negative consequence.

...From a previous reference..
Fatalities attributable to various forms of generation construction, operation, and consequential ..(yes, including Chernoble etc)
.. Human , not wildlife !!

Wind ……………………… 0.15 deaths / TWh
CSP ………………………. 0.44 deaths / TWh
Nuclear ………………….. 0.04 deaths / TWh
.....

 

[sendler2112]

The newest coal power technology can convert the coal to high percentages of H2 for combustion in combined cycle turbines. And separate and sequester the carbon and other elements prior to burning the H2. Fairly inefficient but fairly clean if you have somewhere to pump the CO2.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_gasification_combined_cycle
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[jonescg]

@ Hillhater - I guess I meant the principle of using a heat exchanger to boil water is the simplicity. It doesn't need lots of silicon and semiconductors, or any kind of DC to AC and back again shenanigans. But yes, the heliostats are complicated even if the tracking technology is pretty mature. SA can get some pretty wild storms too, so I hope they have some pretty good footings on those mirrors :O

 

[wineboyrider]

No time to check your references Hillhater just don't like the anti-renewable stance. I probably agree with most of what you argue, but those numbers seem awfully low. How many people or animals died from nuclear exposure? Not easy to answer. The cost of any power plant should be considered regardless. In economics it's called external cost of production or externalities. Glad you know me by my first name what's yours? 8)

 

[sendler2112]

The report from Andasol is claiming the cost of the thermal storage at $80/ kWh of thermal energy so depending on the heat losses and conversion efficiencies in the generation this appears to be way cheaper than batteries as a Tesla gridscale storage solution is somewhere around $400/ kWh and GM is mentioning $230/ kWh just for raw cells in the pack of the Bolt.

 

[wineboyrider]

The report from Andasol is claiming the cost of the thermal storage at $80/ kWh of thermal energy so depending on the heat losses and conversion efficiencies in the generation this appears to be way cheaper than batteries as a Tesla gridscale storage solution is somewhere around $400/ kWh and GM is mentioning $230/ kWh just for raw cells in the pack of the Bolt.

Seems promising for large scale renewables.

 

[sendler2112]

but those numbers seem awfully low. )

I believe those human death numbers in that report were referring to the deaths that occur per unit of nameplate power of the systems during manufacturing and contruction/ installation.
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And, it's not being against renwables. It's being pragmatic. Bill Gates is a smart man. Hes been surrounded by really smart people for all of his professional life. He became one of the richest people in the world. He knows a little something about what it takes to manufacture things. He now uses much of his wealth in forward thinking projects to save humanity.He calls solar and wind farms "cute little things". Since they are if you run the numbers. We must be pragmatic. Energy is economy is quality of life.
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20 MW average from Andasol is a toy. It takes 50 of these to make the output of 1 nuclear plant.

 

[wineboyrider]

but those numbers seem awfully low. )

I believe those human death numbers in that report were referring to the deaths that occur per unit of nameplate power of the systems during manufacturing and contruction/ installation.
.
And, it's not being against renwables. It's being pragmatic. Bill Gates is a smart man. Hes been surrounded by really smart people for all of his professional life. He became one of the richest people in the world. He knows a little something about what it takes to manufacture things. He now uses much of his wealth in forward thinking projects to save humanity.He calls solar and wind farms "cute little things". Since they are if you run the numbers. We must be pragmatic. Energy is economy is quality of life.
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20 MW average from Andasol is a toy. It takes 50 of these to make the output of 1 nuclear plant.

For someone who started out in Albuquerque he gets some credit for that. As far as pragmatism I think I am very much so. The fact that renewables are'nt the only answer to our energy I agree. In fact, I am more about local energy sources and economic independence than environmental fascism.

 

[Hillhater]

The report from Andasol is claiming the cost of the thermal storage at $80/ kWh of thermal energy so depending on the heat losses and conversion efficiencies in the generation this appears to be way cheaper than batteries as a Tesla gridscale storage solution is somewhere around $400/ kWh and GM is mentioning $230/ kWh just for raw cells in the pack of the Bolt.

Im not sure you can compare storage costs that easily.
Certainly a Tesla battery farm has been costed at $350,000/MWh , based on small scale facilities , fully installed with inverters and controlls etc ..but it would Likely be much cheaper on a larger (500+ MWh ) scale, as needed for a facility like Anadasol.
So at a guess , say $300/kWh fully operational.
But , the salt storage at $80 /kWht is only a liquid salt heat store system with no heat input facility or costs, and no electrical output facility or costs. That like having a battery with no terminals to use it !
Those extra costs alone make it totally uncompetitive.
Notice that the $80 is a "kWht" unit.....the "t" indicating it is a thermal power unit , not elecrical .
AND....if you look at figure 6 on that report, it shows the conversion efficiency from heat store (kWht) to electrical output (kWhe).....520GWht to the steam plant results in 180 GWhe net electrical output !....35% efficient !....WTF ?
That is so poor, i am not convinced in the data reliability. But if it is correct, then that $80 is at least $240 equivalent for the battery output......and it still doesnt include any costs for power input to the storage !
Someone please tell me i am way off track here because this is becoming a bad joke !
Wineboyrider, what makes you think i know your name ?
I am not against renewables, i think home solar and ultimately storage is the solution to many problems,
But, some of these commercial scale systems are just not economically sensible and most likely just established with the intention of profiting from the many Goverment and state Renewable rebate, loan , tax, and subsidy schemes....with little regard for the real impact on power costs.