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Gemini Solar's Facility in NV - from Austin Energy
According to the Statesman, Paul Robbins, the author of the Austin Environmental Directory, estimates the cost of power produced by the plant at 16.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, but notes that peak production from the plant would coincide with peak power usage in Austin - the hottest, sunniest days. Building a new natural gas or coal plant would involve costs around 9 to 16 cents per kilowatt hour (page 31 of the link), depending on fossil fuel prices and whether CO2 was sequestered. Those prices could increase if fuel prices rise in the future, whereas prices for power from the solar plant would be locked for the next 25 years.
The panels would be made in China and Japan, but the remainder of the work associated with the plant would be sourced in Austin.
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YES!! So Awesome!!!!
There are any number of companies in the United States who produce solar panels, many of them on the cutting edge of cost/efficiency. Why send money to China and Japan when it can be invested here?
Duh, because workers here require all these outrageous cushions, like haz-mat suits, ventilation, pee breaks, and worker's compensation for on-the-job injuries.
I'm going to be the contrarian here and say Bad Idea. The way solar PV makes best sense is as a peak producer at the point of consumption where it has other beneficial side-effects. For instance, cover a roof with solar panels - prevents electricity from even having to be sent all the way to that customer; also provides shade (cooling) for the roof.
Effectively, solar on the roof eliminates transmission losses entirely - helping make up some of the cost differential. Putting solar PV out in the middle of nowhere incurs the same transmission losses as you get with the other sources, and is unlikely to provide any ancillary benefits in lower A/C costs.
Why not, instead, cover a bunch of large, low, warehouses with PV owned by Austin Energy?
Mike, you make a good point, but I still think that Solar farms could make sense. I don't think it has to be an either/or situation.
I think solar thermal makes sense out in the middle of nowhere, but not solar PV. And this is basically either/or; the utility only has so much money to spend on green energy.
mdahmus - your plan of having the city put PV on everyone's rooftops is an excellent idea in theory, but a terrible idea in reality. The logistics of something like that would be staggering and unbelievably costly.
Hooray that Austin Energy is planning to build this solar farm though!!!!!!!!
One huge step in the right direction.
Really, McHummus? Although i like your idea of community rooftop solar farms, I thought solar-thermal projects only make sense for home-site applications such as solar water heaters installed on rooftops... and, that the only feasible way for solar power to work from a remote location is to turn solar power into electricity via photovoltaic cells and then to send the electricity to where it is needed via electrical transmission systems or some sort of portable-battery-delivery system, if there is such a thing. But then, I learned all I know about the subject from Wikipedia.
I propose photovoltaic hats for homeless people - the homeless spend large amounts of time outdoors, right? What I'm thinking is that when a student, for instance, needs a charge for his laptop, he simply plugs his battery into a homeless person for a few minutes... in exchange for his pocket change, of course.
The idea is NOT "put one on everybody's roof" - that's what the incentives are for. The idea is for Austin Energy to put a couple of LARGE farms on a couple of LARGE private roofs - think the Convention Center, for instance.
Places where there's a lot of local power demand (so the energy can be used without worrying about transmission loss) and where the beneficial side-effect of cooler roofs can do some good.
Solar thermal is referring to the new type of solar farms where a bunch of mirrors focus the sun at some substance like molten salt which then drives turbines at any time (not just when the sun is shining) - NOT solar hot water.
should have proofread. The idea with PV ought to be to put some large solar PV farms on some large roofs of some buildings that have high AC load like the Convention Center (or big box retailers like Costco, for another example). Solar thermal is for the middle-of-nowhere.
Damn you, Wikipedia.
Molten salt? Really? Wow!
How significant are transmission losses for a plant located just outside town? I think the bigger issue is cost. It sounds like the 16.5 cents/kWh number for solar is just the generation cost and not the retail price, so it should not be compared to the 13 cents/kWh we pay now. I believe natural gas power electricity costs in the neighborhood of 5 cents/kWh to generate making this plant about triple the cost. I've heard that solar thermal can be cheaper but don't know the details.
Also, I wonder how panels handle storm damage. Do operators need to somehow prepare panels for an incoming storm?
Re: transmission losses; a big plant on the outskirts is going to send its electrons through a couple of transformers and a bunch of wires before it gets to the customer, right? Solar on somebody's roof just goes through an inverter (still required even in the outside-of-town case) and then basically displaces demand for electricity over the wire.
Yeah, but that only works if you put panels on everybody's roof. Panels on the convention convention center only eliminate the loss in transmission between the out of town plant and the city. I'm guessing that the logistical advantages of building on open land easily outweigh that small loss.
I saw a show on some science channel that said these things are something like 18% useful where in a few years they'll be 48% useful. I don't know. Science. Who needs it?
The show was about the world in 2058 if anyone wants to watch for when it's on.
Alex, figure 23 on page 31 of the following link shows total lifecycle generation costs for various natural gas and coal power plants at 9-16 cents/kwh, depending on fuel type, fuel costs and whether CO2 is sequestered:
governor.state.tx.us/files/gcc/2008_Texas_State_Energy_Plan.pdf
I think 5 cents/kWh is based on using existing power plants. If you take into account the cost of building a new plant, the costs are a lot higher. I think that is the relevant comparison here, as my understanding is that Gemini will be supplying and installing the solar panels. Of course, the proposed solar plant is getting the benefit of land supplied by Austin Energy, without which the costs would be higher.
That said, your point is well taken that comparing future wholesale costs of power generated by this facility to current retail costs is confusing, so I tweaked the post.
As a bonus, page 32 of that link has a nice chart comparing TX CO2 emissions to those of other states. We are kicking their asses.
Nano Solar. Made in Silicon Valley, CA. Made from sheets that roll out. *Incredibly* cheaper than solar panels. And we'd be helping the poor bankrupt CA state so we have less refugees coming here.
Actually, I'm surprised Austin would not be considering Nano Solar. http://www.nanosolar.com/
Who do I talk to?
Thanks for the link, Shilli. Interesting reading.
Poking around on the web, it looks like solar energy is not as cost prohibitive as I thought. It does seem to be highly dependent on federal tax credits. This analysis claims that solar cells would cost 34 to 40 cents per kWh without the credits. I don't know what to make of all these estimates. There seems to be quite some variability.
With local startup Heliovolt about to start production (maybe they already have?) with CIGS, wouldn't it make sense for Austin Energy to look into applying this new technology, which lets you imbed cheaper solar material into buildings, here in Austin?
AE might be looking into it, for all I know. CIGS and a solar farm wouldn't be mutually exclusive components of our energy need.
Just fyi Heliovolt has recently laid off a bunch of their senior maintenance workers/engineers.
Don't know if they're gonna go chapter 13 or not, hope not. They are indeed similar to the Nanosolar company mentioned.
Look past the pretty wrapping paper...
Yes, it's a great idea. Yes, the power is clean. Yes, we want it.
BUT
There is no reason to have the panels made in China/Japan/Hong Kong/Wherever. We have people/companies here than can get the job done. It might be more expensive but we don't care. We've wasted money on stupid city projects before and at least this one will produce a good outcome as long as it gets done. Everyone wins if we keep the money here in the United States (preferably, Austin).
It may be beyond the scope of this article but the price of the solar power is far cheaper than $.16 when you consider the environmental impact of a coal plant. 9 times out of 10, if it's cheaper to produce it's going to be of poor quality. K-Mart comes to mind :-)
While we're at it lets pass an ordinance that requires all buildings over 3 stories to have at least 75% solar panel coverage on the roof. Why not? Nobody sees the roof anyway unless you're in a plane. Hell, it would make Austin look even cooler form the air. I always said flying into Austin looked like flying into a rain forest compared to other cities I've been to.
God this coffee is strong ... I need to relax. I'm not even a tree huger.
The panels are assembled in China using solar cells made in the US, I believe its MCME that makes the cells, they have a plant in Pasadena. Most of the construction jobs, the structural, wiring will all be sourced from Texas.
Another post mentioned Nanaosolar, all of Nanosolars production is currently being purchased by companies in Spain.
The Nanosolar product is running at around 14% efficiency and the polycrystalline in the proposed project is over 20%, this will require less land to be used (an issue that has been brought up in other forums).
So high efficiency, local generation, tracking for maximum output during peak consumption and the price per watt delivered is comparable to what a new gas peaker would run as long as the price of natural gas doesnt go over $11 or we dont get a federal carbon tax of some sort, the the solar plant could be cheeper than a gas peaker.
As this is a PPA, Austin Energy only has to start paying when the power is delivered (sometime in 2011) and only pays for the power produced so the large numbers that are being tossed about are for 25 years not the capitol cost it would take to build a new plant and now bond approval or interest.
The large solar plant is locally connected on a high voltage transmission line so losses are very low and there is not any congestion issues to deal with.
As for roof top placement the Austin Pecan street project is ramping up for roof top mounting on large roof tops.
What makes this installation attractive is that the system will be on single axis trackers, this will increase the efficiency of the system considerably especially in the late afternoon peak.It has the capability of replacing a considerable amount of gas turbine or even coal being used as a peaker. During those hot ozone alert days having 30 MW of emission less local generation would be a very good thing for air quality.
There's still a lot of transmission loss (we'd have coal plants much closer to the city if we had the option of doing so) - there's a lot of power lost on those high voltage lines. And putting the solar plant out on the eastern (cloudier) side of the city doesn't make a lot of sense either.
Finally, once again, I was NOT talking about using this money to pay rebates for more people to put small systems on their own roofs. I was talking about the utility using LARGE roofs in sunny areas to generate power (still owned by AE, but right next to the grid).
Greetings Austin,
With this great opprounity for our city, I would like for the citizens of Austin to consiter the following:
1. Is a bid that is close to being accepted (March 5th) from a company that is five months old (Gemini) a prudent dicision?
2. Have Texas companies bid on this?
3. Are the solar panels used by Gemini from China or USA?
4. Is the financing coming mostly from China or Texas?
5. Is this yearly 10 million dollar check from Austin Energy going to Texas businesses or over seas?
6. Austin based compaines need the opprounty to know about and build the proposals for the 30MW Solar power plant project being developed for Austin Energy and its customers (us).
Solar water heating is probably a more practical way to attack the energy use problem.
Solar water heating converts 65% of the energy that strikes the panel into useful energy. PV electric cells only convert at 15% efficiency, and are much more expensive. The final cost per MW is about $10000 for PV and about $2000 for solar water heating. The payback(without subsidies) for water heating is around 6-7 years if your electricity rate is 10 cents per KW/H. We have more information here at Sunbelt Solar a local solar installer in Austin, TX.