Google Invests $168 Million in 392MW Mojave Desert Solar Thermal Plant

 

Google is announcing a $168 million investment in Brightsource Energy's Ivanpah solar power plant in the Mojave desert in California. The solar farm will have a capacity of 392 MW. According to Google, that's the equivalent of "taking more than 90,000 cars off the road over the lifetime of the plant, projected to be more than 25 years."

Google has Invested $250 Million in Clean Energy So Far
 

The solar farm will use heliostat mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy onto a tower where the heat will generate steam that makes a turbine spin. "Power towers are very efficient because all those mirrors focus a tremendous amount of solar energy onto a small area to produce steam at high pressure and temperature (up to 1000 degrees F)."

The Ivanpah Power Tower will be approximately 450 feet tall and will use 173,000 heliostats, each with two mirrors. Construction began last fall and should end up 2013.

Part of Google's motivation is to help the solar power sector reach maturity faster (the more you build, the faster you reach economies of scale)

Google: We need smart capital to transform our energy sector and build a clean energy future. This is our largest investment to date, and we've now invested over $250 million in the clean energy sector. We're excited about Ivanpah because our investment will help deploy a compelling solar energy technology that provides reliable clean energy, with the potential to significantly reduce costs on future projects.

Article by Michael Graham Richard, TreeHugger

Own or Contract Solar Power Plants? Utilities Need to Decide

Operations and Maintenance Costs are Part of the Decision 

Utility scale solar photovoltaic (PV) sites have a cost, and I'm not talking about the energy.
 

Sure, a utility could rely on a third party power purchase agreement (PPA) as it formerly did. But as they contemplate ownership of both central and distrib¬uted solar-based generation, they now must consider system performance, reliability, and asset management priorities.

The issue has drawn attention to require a closer look.

To that end, the industry's research arm, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), has released a white paper on the growing trend.  "Addressing Solar Photovoltaic Operations and Maintenance Challenges - A Survey of Current Knowledge and Practices" looks at what goes into this decision and how utilities are coping with the challenge.

"In short, PV asset ownership shifts the financial onus onto utilities," the report says.

I recently spoke to the point man involved in the creation of the report, Nadav Enbar, senior project manager for distributed renewables, power delivery and utilization.

"The fundamental rationale behind this report is that PV is growing and we are not moving back in time," he said. "As we look historically at the growth of conventional generation sources, we're seeing order-of-magnitude growth, with a similar trajectory for solar photovoltaic power right now."

Although state renewable portfolio standards are playing a part, some utilities are making a deliberate decision to add additional PV, Enbar said.

"The idea is that utilities are spending more on the technology whether they are mandated or not .and many are choosing to bring the assets under their own umbrella," he said.

The choice is pretty basic, but one which was easier to make when PV was a tiny part of the power generation system: a PPA offers lower up-front costs as electricity is bought from outside the organization but more expensive over the 15- or 20-year life of the contract. Some utilities are now favoring the longer view and incorporating the assets into their portfolios.

That decision entails another set of costs. "Utilities have to pay attention to the upkeep and maintenance of their assets base to bring the greatest amount of value in terms of electricity production but also to maintain a level of reliability," Enbar added.

Those expenses can range generally from1 percent to 5 percent of the all-in installation costs.

One utility that has gone this route is Southern California Edison, which started out by sending out its O&M but has now decided to bring it in-house. The scale of its commitment to PV made the decision a little easier. In 2008 announced its intention to own 500 megawatts. That in itself will support 23 full time employees.

A hybrid option is also starting to emerge in which the utility that is adding PV gears up its O&M by first outsourcing its functions for a couple of years while it gets its own staff trained from the third party it has hired. It can then transition its operations and maintenance to eventually becoming a utility function.

But there does not seem to be typical tipping point when the utility makes a decision to bring PV O&M in-house. Local conditions seem to be the determining factors: travel distances to sites, climate and season, ground versus rooftop systems, and even when the best time might be to roll a truck.

There's also the power market coming into play. Enbar said scheduling panel cleaning can be done just before the peak solar energy season to take advantage of the increased generation capacity.

In other words, the reasons are all over the map.

Article by Bill Opalka, RenewablesBiz

Solar Champions Wanted

Utilities are looking more favorably at solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity as a resource, as reported here last week. But to drill down more deeply into the analysis, the research firm Gartner and the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) recently held a webinar to discuss the survey.

"We wanted to understand how solar fit into the overall population of renewable resources that the utilities had," said Al Velosa, an analyst at Gartner.

One thing that struck the researchers was the widespread degree of acceptability solar PV has achieved. In short, solar power isn't just a research project or government mandate anymore, farmed out to lower level office to the utility enterprise, but an integral part of resource planning that is worthy of attention in the executive suite.

"A surprising number of utilities are using PV, especially considering the amount of installations," Velosa said. "PV clearly is a presence among the resources that are part of the portfolio."

One tipoff is the changes in the planning process.  If solar PV construction or procurement is only part of a mandate, it could be the responsibility of a "compliance team." But as it gains a more prominent role, more utilities are putting responsibility on the standard energy team.

"The energy team is something that makes the process more predictable because one change you get is that there starts a rich dialogue to get an idea of how the market is going," Velosa added.

This offers an opportunity for new resources. "There's clearly a need for champions. In legislatures and public utility commissions there're clearly a vocal and strong leadership promoting solar," he said. "And when we looked at our survey population, the traditional energy teams were clearly involved, which is very important."

While interest is high, the ownership model is something that is clearly in flux.

"We are getting mixed messages," Velosa said. "In some cases the utilities are very interested in owning the assets and having stronger control. In other cases, there's too much of a technological requirement," that means a reliance on independent power producers to own and operate the assets.

Whatever the business model chosen, PV appears to be gaining a larger share of the utilities' attention.

Article by Bill Opalka Courtesy of RenewablesBiz