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Google solar plant is just €0.55 per watt
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16-11-2013 12:36am#1Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,827 Mod ✭✭✭✭Join Date:Posts: 89067
Nice to get costs on these things. Solar is now down to €0.55 / $0.74 per watt.
And that's not just for the panels it's for the full installation. Yes it's a nameplate figure, but you have to remember that most of the power produced is at times of peak grid price.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/15/google_pledges_80_mil_for_solar_power_push/[uote]Google will invest $80m in solar-powered plants as it keeps in mind exactly what may end up powering its data centers in future.
The ad giant and investment firm KKR will work together to bankroll the construction of six new solar farms in the American Southwest. The facilities are slated to be built in the desert regions of Arizona and Southern California. The plants are set to go online in the early months of 2014.
According to Google, the completed facilities will, at their peak, generate some 106MW of electricity, enough to power 16,000 homes.[/quote]0
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You could buy modules in bulk for very low prices last year (I heard prices as low as 37c per watt), but the EU has decided the China was involved in below-cost selling and has brought in various tariffs which is causing all manner of supply line problems. Chinese factories are being relocated and it is all a bit of a mess at the moment, but with prices a bit higher.
1mw Units are getting built in the UK for 90p approx and at that price, you are getting very close to grid parity - even in the UK. So at 55c in Arizona, it has to be a no-brainer.0 -
What does this have to do with Ireland? Comparing Arizona/SoCal with Ireland when it comes to solar panelling must be a bit like chalk and cheese no?Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Nice to get costs on these things. Solar is now down to €0.55 / $0.74 per watt.
And that's not just for the panels it's for the full installation. Yes it's a nameplate figure, but you have to remember that most of the power produced is at times of peak grid price.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/15/google_pledges_80_mil_for_solar_power_pushGoogle will invest $80m in solar-powered plants as it keeps in mind exactly what may end up powering its data centers in future.
The ad giant and investment firm KKR will work together to bankroll the construction of six new solar farms in the American Southwest. The facilities are slated to be built in the desert regions of Arizona and Southern California. The plants are set to go online in the early months of 2014.
According to Google, the completed facilities will, at their peak, generate some 106MW of electricity, enough to power 16,000 homes.
It doesn't matter how cheap you make the solar panels - you could make them free - the differences between Ireland and Arizona- Much of the U.S. has a strong link between solar radiation and air conditioning usage.
- Their temperatures are much more variable.
- The Irish peak is in the dead of winter, often when the sun is giving us very little heat and the wind is not blowing.
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PV will be a necessary technology in Ireland's future energy mix, not least because its one of the few easily distributed forms of generation that reduces the need for transmission grids and complements wind well. Therefore, PV technology cost reductions are of interest, yes, also in Ireland.
There is a nonsensical idea floating around that we should only have turbines where the wind blows most and PV where the sun shines the most. It shows a total lack of understanding of how energy systems work, congestion, capacity and the cost of transmission.0 -
Couldn't agree more Macha. Many objectors to wind farms site intermittent supply as a major problem, but it doesn't need to be. Demand side management is also going to be the new buzzword with more incentives to use smart metering and smart equipment controls to keep a stable grid as renewables increase their input.
Our own house is powered by a combination of a 3kw turbine and 2kw of solar PV. At night we charge an electric car. We have moved from being off-grid to being grid tied and overall the combination of PV and EV means that we have a nett levelling effect on the grid, whereas renewables are seen as causing imbalance.
PV is a key contributor as I work from home and we use quite a bit of power during the day, as do many poeople, albeit at their place of work. If a cost of less than €1 per watt can be achieved, this provides about 0.85KwHr per year in Ireland, or retail 16c worth of electricity (inc. VAT). For us that would be a payback time of 7 to 8 years, which I consider as very acceptable.0 -
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Then again in summer we get 18 hours of daylight so as a seasonal power supply it gets interesting. Maybe 1,400-1,700 hours of sunshine a year here which adds up.What does this have to do with Ireland? Comparing Arizona/SoCal with Ireland when it comes to solar panelling must be a bit like chalk and cheese no?
It doesn't matter how cheap you make the solar panels - you could make them free - the differences between Ireland and Arizona- Much of the U.S. has a strong link between solar radiation and air conditioning usage.
- Their temperatures are much more variable.
- The Irish peak is in the dead of winter, often when the sun is giving us very little heat and the wind is not blowing.
In general solar has few moving parts so should be reliable. We get a lot of diffuse light because of clouds so trackers aren't that beneficial here.
Every MWh you get from renewables is one less generated by fossil fuel.
http://www.energy.siemens.com/hq/en/power-transmission/hvdc/hvdc-ultra/#content=Benefits
Morocco is 2,000Km south of us.The most economic solution for long-distance bulk power transmission, due to lower losses, is transmission with High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC). A basic rule of thumb: for every 1,000 kilometres the DC line losses are less than 3% (e.g. for 5,000 MW at a voltage of 800 kV).
Jan Mayen is 2,000 Km north. And solar panels are more efficient when cool. In summer, the Sun is continuously above the horizon for 126 days, from April 19 to August 23. A lot of that is diffuse light but kinda interesting all the same.
http://weatherspark.com/averages/28884/Longyearbyen-Spitsbergen-Svalbard-and-Jan-Mayen
East-West is interesting too, at 53 degrees north the circumference of the earth is 24,000Km so each 1,000 link can give you another hour of solar in the morning/evening , though for us that would mean somewhere in the Atlantic to help with the evening peak :pac:
12,000Km is half way around the world and at a loss of 3% per thousand Km, you'd still get 69% of the power. But the costs of cabling would be excessive, but still..,
But when you take into interconnectors costs it's probably cheaper to use panels in areas that are more inefficient, unless you can use the interconnectors for exporting power too.
Just a reminder by now the UK has nearly 3GW of solar installed.0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »But when you take into interconnectors costs it's probably cheaper to use panels in areas that are more inefficient, unless you can use the interconnectors for exporting power too.
Just a reminder by now the UK has nearly 3GW of solar installed.
Yep. They're looking at wind turbines for areas of low wind in Germany. That's going to revolutionise renewables integration, especially when you consider how much PV there is in southern Germany. I think they're up around 32GW overall.0 -
Yes, because power prices will be so massively unstable, people will have to check the wind speed before starting the washing machine, because the electricity would be €2 a unit, or we will have to check that the sun is shining before turning on any electric heaters for the same reason.quentingargan wrote: »Demand side management is also going to be the new buzzword with more incentives to use smart metering and smart equipment controls to keep a stable grid as renewables increase their input.
In short, in your vision, people in the future will have to fit their lives around the weather. Yes, that really does sound like a quantum leap forward :rolleyes: I don't think.
Can I also take this as confirmation that storage will not be playing a large role and all of the OPs posts about underground steam caverns and nitric acid and other stuff can be considered bunkum?
The problem is that your turbines and solar panels are probably contributing to the grid when it already has lots of wind power working well. Perhaps you have €0 or negative electricity bill, but that's not the same as having a "levelling effect."Our own house is powered by a combination of a 3kw turbine and 2kw of solar PV. At night we charge an electric car. We have moved from being off-grid to being grid tied and overall the combination of PV and EV means that we have a nett levelling effect on the grid, whereas renewables are seen as causing imbalance.
Do you live in Ireland? I have somewhat painful memories of Christmastime 2010, when the temperature went down to -15C. At the family home, we had to throw on everything electric to stop from freezing. Electric heaters, immersion, even the electric oven at one point. This was also the first time I ever bought coal for the fireplace - and we were glad I did.PV will be a necessary technology in Ireland's future energy mix, not least because its one of the few easily distributed forms of generation that reduces the need for transmission grids
There would have been no sunlight to speak of, there was no wind during that time and any hydroelectric pumped storage would have long since frozen. So we needed a strong, well capitalised electric grid - and as a people we will continue to do so because these winter conditions do arise and may occur again.
The idea that anything posted here will reduce the need for a transmission grid is bizarre in the extreme.
Huh? You don't build a coal fired power plan 1000 miles from the coal mine (unless you have to) and some of the stuff going on with renewables (like trashing the midlands of Ireland with 300 metre high wind turbines to power cities over 100 miles plus a vast body of water away) should be raising alarm bells.There is a nonsensical idea floating around that we should only have turbines where the wind blows most and PV where the sun shines the most. It shows a total lack of understanding of how energy systems work, congestion, capacity and the cost of transmission.
False. Every MWh you get from renewables has to be backed by a traditional power plant because they are literally as reliable as the weather.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Every MWh you get from renewables is one less generated by fossil fuel.
At an absolutely massive cost of cabling, no doubt.East-West is interesting too, at 53 degrees north the circumference of the earth is 24,000Km so each 1,000 link can give you another hour of solar in the morning/evening0 -
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Do you live in Ireland? I have somewhat painful memories of Christmastime 2010, when the temperature went down to -15C. At the family home, we had to throw on everything electric to stop from freezing. Electric heaters, immersion, even the electric oven at one point. This was also the first time I ever bought coal for the fireplace - and we were glad I did.
There would have been no sunlight to speak of, there was no wind during that time and any hydroelectric pumped storage would have long since frozen. So we needed a strong, well capitalised electric grid - and as a people we will continue to do so because these winter conditions do arise and may occur again.
You think the weather doesn't get bad in southern Germany? How do you think they're doing with almost 25% RES share in their electricity mix, much of it PV? They're getting on fine. The above is policy by anecdote.
Explain.The idea that anything posted here will reduce the need for a transmission grid is bizarre in the extreme.
Just on the displacement of fossil fuels, you do know that back up fossil fuel generation doesn't run unless it's needed, right?0 -
They also have lots of coal.You think the weather doesn't get bad in southern Germany? How do you think they're doing with almost 25% RES share in their electricity mix, much of it PV? They're getting on fine. The above is policy by anecdote.
Forgive me if I have erred, but the mainstream environmental view on the topic of backup is that you can use something called CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Technology) to provide backup for unstable renewables.Just on the displacement of fossil fuels, you do know that back up fossil fuel generation doesn't run unless it's needed, right?
There are a few problems with this approach.- IIRC CCGT is expensive, more so than traditional approaches to traditional gas burning.
- Until recently, the only places we could get sources of gas long term would have been from Siberia.
- Fracking is now an option, and its making lots of cheap gas all over the place, but it potentially carries such severe environmental consequences that it would be greener just to burn lots of coal.
- No matter what, gas is a precious resource that should not be wasted - it's just behind oil as a dense, easily transportable fuel with nearly as versatile a range of uses. It is for this reason that we've long since abandoned large scale oil burning in power plants - we need every drop of the stuff for our cars, ships, planes, home heating, you name it.
Gas should be viewed in the same way, no matter how much of it is currently available and no matter what the means of production. - As above, the fact that renewables strategies rely so heavily on gas should not logically be viewed as black marks against coal power or nuclear power, but against renewables for leaving us with just the option of CCGT. By any logical analyses, this should be red-flagged as a major strategic error.
You stated that having more renewables we would reduce the need for transmission grids:Explain.
I pointed out that these renewables WILL fail, likely when they are most needed, so we will still need a massive transmission grid, and lots of reliable power plants.PV will be a necessary technology in Ireland's future energy mix, not least because its one of the few easily distributed forms of generation that reduces the need for transmission grids
Unless you think risking a grid collapse in an Xmas 2010 style national emergency is a good idea, which I'm sure you agree is not.0 -
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LOLYes, because power prices will be so massively unstable, people will have to check the wind speed before starting the washing machine, because the electricity would be €2 a unit, or we will have to check that the sun is shining before turning on any electric heaters for the same reason.
I keep posting this link - actual Irish wholesale prices
http://www.sem-o.com/Pages/default.aspx
It peaked at €200/MWhr and at other times it was about €30
So here and now there is already a seven fold difference in wholesale electricity cost during the day.
In an ideal world with well insulated apartments you'd set the timer so that it would be warm when you got home. Economy 7 / Night Rate has been going years as a dumb way of spreading out storage heater / washing machine / dishwasher jobs, Does anyone have two immersions on different rates ?
[uote]In short, in your vision, people in the future will have to fit their lives around the weather. Yes, that really does sound like a quantum leap forward :rolleyes: I don't think.[/quote]Wind is generally predictable three days out. clouds are visible from satellite. We live in an age where people don't have to watch live telly, since they can use timeshift viewing. Heating, and washing machines linked to smart meter could do the same.
[uote]Can I also take this as confirmation that storage will not be playing a large role and all of the OPs posts about underground steam caverns and nitric acid and other stuff can be considered bunkum?[/quote]LOL
As you well know we have a glut of fossil fuel generators for backup. Over 10GW dispatchable capacity here. Storage just isn't needed. Also unlike "new nuclear" the stuff I've mentioned elsewhere actually works commercially.
The other stuff was referrring to the "use it loose" nature of surplus electricity. If as you suggest negative prices are likely outside the Byzantine regulations in the US, then being able to use the electricity for industrial processes might be a way out. Like I said response time of one second for some of the hydrolysis units could help grid stability
-15C is an extreme event in Ireland, but other places it's normal. The difference is insulation.Do you live in Ireland? I have somewhat painful memories of Christmastime 2010, when the temperature went down to -15C. At the family home, we had to throw on everything electric to stop from freezing. Electric heaters, immersion, even the electric oven at one point. This was also the first time I ever bought coal for the fireplace - and we were glad I did.
No the hydro won't freeze. Or Iceland and Norway wouldn't bother it. And we have tonnes of fossil fuel backup and interconnectors.There would have been no sunlight to speak of, there was no wind during that time and any hydroelectric pumped storage would have long since frozen. So we needed a strong, well capitalised electric grid - and as a people we will continue to do so because these winter conditions do arise and may occur again.
[uote]The idea that anything posted here will reduce the need for a transmission grid is bizarre in the extreme.
Huh? You don't build a coal fired power plan 1000 miles from the coal mine (unless you have to) and some of the stuff going on with renewables (like trashing the midlands of Ireland with 300 metre high wind turbines to power cities over 100 miles plus a vast body of water away) should be raising alarm bells.[/quote]Remind me again how far from the coal mine Moneypoint is ?
Or where Australian coal is used ?False. Every MWh you get from renewables has to be backed by a traditional power plant because they are literally as reliable as the weather.LOL
The rule is to backup the largest generator on the system
Biggest windfarm today is 30MW
Nuclear power plant in Hinkley will be 100 times as much at 3.2GW
Weather prediction has come a long way - it's not as big an issue as having a reactor out of comission for 72 hours after a scram because of Xenon poisoning or years if there is corrosion in the steam pipes. Wind may vary from the prediction, anyone can do the spreadsheets from eirgrid 15 minute data to check how much it does. But wind doesn't instantly stop without warning and we already have the backup. Also at present we need large spinning generators for frequency stabilisation.
Hinckley C will cost six billion euro per GW. That would buy a lot of cabling. And turbines and PV. Or you could invest in a single point of failure.At an absolutely massive cost of cabling, no doubt.
You can run a grid using just fossil fuel and/or a mass of hydroelectric storage.
Anything else requires backing up by the above or oversupply. You picks your poison and takes your chances. Grids and interconnector spread the load. Oversupply with nuclear means an insane capital cost , to cover ROI load you'd need two at a capital cost of 32Bn and you'd only need one in summer, and you'd still need a couple of GW fossil backup.
http://www.renewablesinternational.net/power-plant-projects-on-hold-in-germany/150/537/61889/ Interesting article that points out thatthe German coal fired plants that came on line recently would have been planned back around 2008 because of the lead time involved. So they aren't in response to Nuclear phaseout or economic crisis. And the thing is that most new fossil fuel projects have been shelved in the face of renewables.
tldr;
we have plenty of fast response fossil generators and that means it's easy to integrate up to 50% renewables using exiting grid rules.0 -
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They have lots of lignite.
And that article is from 2007 so those plants have been built and they aren't building more since. Instead 32GW of solar PV was installed
Plants use little gas when idling. And even less when turned off. The whole point of backup is you use when you need it I've already posted elsewhere the US study where the increased maintainance costs were predicted to be $170m dollars vs.. $7Billion savings in fuel.Forgive me if I have erred, but the mainstream environmental view on the topic of backup is that you can use something called CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Technology) to provide backup for unstable renewables.
Also a lot of EU gas now comes from Norway and not Russia.
Have a look at the eirgrid web site some time.I pointed out that these renewables WILL fail, likely when they are most needed, so we will still need a massive transmission grid, and lots of reliable power plants.
Unless you think risking a grid collapse in an Xmas 2010 style national emergency is a good idea, which I'm sure you agree is not.
This isn't the first time I've posted an all island capacity statement
http://www.eirgrid.com/media/All-Island_GCS_2013-2022.pdf
go to page 8. the graph says the dispatchable capacity for ROI in 2016 will be 7,664 MW, the record demand ever was 5,090MW back in 2010. And that was exceptionally other years were below 4,650MW ( that chart also clearly shows that in winter we use 1GW more than summer, the bulk of that would be presumably for space and water heating so could be linked to smart meters / short term demand shedding )
I'm asking you to explain how you can predict a grid collapse when we have 50% reserve dispatchable capacity for the next few years and at least 600MW until 2022 with current growth projections.0 -
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I've covered this before in great detail so I'll copy and past again:OK let's break out the nerdy energy statistics : in 2011, the year that Germany took 8 nuclear reactors offline, German carbon emissions dropped 2.9%. In 2012, emissions went up 1.6% but that was due to a switch from natural gas back to coal. Coal and lignite generation went up 15 TWh and gas went down by 13 TWh. That, as I said before, is because burning coal was (and still is) cheaper than burning gas due to cheap coal imports from the US and a weak ETS price. Nukes went down 9 TWh and renewables more than compensated by increasing by 13 TWh. Interestingly, German actually exported 17 TWh of electricity in 2012.
As for the construction of coal plants, this graph (in German) is very informative. It shows that 8 new coal plants are under construction in Germany. However, if you look at the status of these projects, you can see that the latest these project were approved was 2009. In addition, the green section shows coal plant projects that have been abandoned (6 have been abandoned since Fukushima).
TL;DR: since Fukushima, Germany has started building zero new coal plants and has abandoned 6 coal plant projects.
Sorry I'm useless at the list option but:Forgive me if I have erred, but the mainstream environmental view on the topic of backup is that you can use something called CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Technology) to provide backup for unstable renewables.
There are a few problems with this approach.- IIRC CCGT is expensive, more so than traditional approaches to traditional gas burning.
- Until recently, the only places we could get sources of gas long term would have been from Siberia.
- Fracking is now an option, and its making lots of cheap gas all over the place, but it potentially carries such severe environmental consequences that it would be greener just to burn lots of coal.
- No matter what, gas is a precious resource that should not be wasted - it's just behind oil as a dense, easily transportable fuel with nearly as versatile a range of uses. It is for this reason that we've long since abandoned large scale oil burning in power plants - we need every drop of the stuff for our cars, ships, planes, home heating, you name it.
Gas should be viewed in the same way, no matter how much of it is currently available and no matter what the means of production. - As above, the fact that renewables strategies rely so heavily on gas should not logically be viewed as black marks against coal power or nuclear power, but against renewables for leaving us with just the option of CCGT. By any logical analyses, this should be red-flagged as a major strategic error.
-CCGT is actually generally twice as efficient as steam generation or simple cycle plants so I'm curious as to why you think they're more expensive.
-We currently get 93% of our gas from the North Sea via Scotland. I don't know when we last got gas from Russia?
-Fracking has been seriously overhyped. The reality of the US 'revolution' is a mix of traditional bubble-hype fuelled by large international corporations with huge capital reserves. Check out Shell CEO Peter Voser saying how much he regrets Shell's shale gas investments in the US and how much money they lost on it. Also, how sceptical he is of shale developments elsewhere. If you look closely, you'll see energy companies being very cautious while politicians and intensive energy users hyping shale up.
-Agreed that gas shouldn't be wasted!
-Wow, you are so hell bent on twisting everything against renewables. I don't know how to respond to this bizarre statement! The fact that nuclear and coal are completely inflexible and incapable of responding to demand is a black mark against renewables?? Wow, wow, wow.
But I'm not clear on what all this has to do with the fact that you only turn on a CCGT back up plant if you need to and that renewables DO physically displace gas that otherwise would have been burned?
My point is that with DSM and distributed generation connected in via DSOs means we won't need as much HVDC lines to connect in far-flung RES resources. More ability to balance the grid at the DSO level also reduces the amount of transmission needed for balancing between larger geographical spreads.You stated that having more renewables we would reduce the need for transmission grids:
I pointed out that these renewables WILL fail, likely when they are most needed, so we will still need a massive transmission grid, and lots of reliable power plants.
Unless you think risking a grid collapse in an Xmas 2010 style national emergency is a good idea, which I'm sure you agree is not.
And if renewables 'WILL fail', please explain to me how Portugal is getting along fine with an average of 55% RES-E, with it up to 80% some weeks and sometimes hitting 100%? Take a look at their TSO's website and see how they are succeeding. The Portuguese Secretary of State in a recent interview that they had mastered the technical challenges of RES integration and that they felt it their mission to address the 'sometimes illegitimate fears' of other countries. Then check out Terna, the Italian TSO that has managed to deal with a massive influx of PV due to a stupidly designed support scheme. They explain how they did it in this presentation (in Italian).0
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