Just last month we witnessed a gigantic skyscraper / solar tower hybrid that generates a whopping
390-kilowatts of energy, but even that looks like child's play compared to the 40-story solar power plant that resides in Spain. The expansive system consists of a towering concrete building, a field of 600 (and growing)
sun-tracking mirrors that are each 120-square meters in size, and a receiver that converts concentrated solar energy from the heliostats into steam that eventually drives the turbines. Currently, only one field of mirrors is up and running, but even that produces enough power to energize 6,000 homes, and the creators are hoping to see the entire population of Seville (600,000 folks) taken care of solely from
sunlight. So if you're eager to see what's likely the greenest solar power plant currently operating, be sure to slip on some shades, tag the read link, and peep the video.
[Via
Wired]
posted May 4th 2007 4:26PM
Wow. If only more of our leaders had the courage to push for infrastructure investments like this.
Just out of curiousity, is it working as the day one or the power supply gone down or slowed down?
We have tens of millions of acres of land here in Texas, scorched by the Sun nine months a year - why aren't there any if these towers here? At 15 cents a kilowatt wouldn't it just be pure profit to build these things?
For additional income they could people go into the tower and give them about 30 seconds of the concentrated sun for a quick sun tan. thats about 6€ per pop.
"It was like being in a sauna and for the last stages the metal rungs of the ladders were scalding."
That's got to be the hottest technology in all of Spain...
Why no link love to the bbc? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6616651.stm\
- Josh
http://www.StateofBrain.com
You sure know much about Spain
This would never be allowed in the US. There would be groups that protested against it because some partially endangered species of bird mught be blinded by the intense rays of focused light if they flew through it.
nope, im sorry...I can't find anything in either of the two linked articels stating 390KW. The BBC site does state 11MW though, thats a little diffferent don't you think??
Yeah, except that THIS solar tower provides 11MW. That IS "whopping" considering it uses nothing more than the sun. Generating 11MW from solar kind of invalidates your "not commercially competitive" remark.
Well, but this spanish facility generates 11 Megawatts (read the bbc link)
Consider this version of a solar tower then - it simply collects heat and uses the heat to drive the turbines:
http://www.wentworth.nsw.gov.au/solartower/
No mirrors, no pointing of sun, no bright light.
Yeah, except it doesn't exist yet. It's all "proposed".
Without any details on contruction or operational costs, or even an undetailed cost per kW it's hard to compare this to other technologies.
NIMBY effects aside you'd think they'd be putting a few of these up in the US SouthWest.
They also failed to cover how they're storing energy for cloudy days or nighttime. Interesting article, but incomplete.
"nope, im sorry...I can't find anything in either of the two linked articels stating 390KW. The BBC site does state 11MW though, thats a little diffferent don't you think??"
Yeah, but that's Spanish megawatts though... :-)
And I'm really disappointed that no-one has said, "1.2 gigawatts!! Great Scott!!!" yet...
Its actually 1.21 JigaWatts....
:)
http://www.deloreanmotorcar.com/ec/jigawatts.htm
Anyone care to take me up on a $100 bet on how long it takes before some psycho sorority girl climbs the tower in a bathing suit and a bottle of tanning lotion? I give it 2 weeks.
Well that is great an all but what are the people of Sevilla going to do during the night, use flashlights? The biggest problem with has to do with storing the energy for the nighttime, and those darn cloudy days, part of that might figure into the price/kw equation.
Further reading shows 11MW=6,000 homes so for 600,000 homes it would need to somehow generate 1,100MW almost 1.2 gigawatts!
It's Spain, not the USA. :)
In the UK, we store power (mostly from coal and nuclear stations) by pumping water up hill, then having it run a turbine when it comes back down. The power production in the UK is only seasonally variable, but we use these gravitational stores to adjust for demand.
The area generates about 11MW because it's not even complete. They're adding new fields of mirrors (perhaps more towers?).
11MW on pure solar with -0- emissions is not a bad thing. (Well, maybe bad for big-oil) :)
skefds obviously can't read properly yet. The 390 Kw figure refers to the tower reported last month not this one. The clue is in the page you get if you click the words "390-kilowatts of energy".
But thanks for the valuable input.
The first post is correct, you just can't get enough energy... yet. Currently, no matter what method, we only use the infrared(usually to reflect the heat, I guess, not absorb it like with the proposed project). We are already able to synthesize special microscopic crystals that are able to absorb the part of the light spectrum that they are colored, and let the rest of the light pass through.
The idea is, if you can synthesize enough different layers, and stack them up, you could increase the amount of energy absorbed per mirror(I guess it won't be a mirror if it absorbs the light though), but the problem is there are still too many defects when synthesizing the crystals, but it's being worked on, and it is just a matter of time. if every one of those mirrors is converted, the amount of power could be almost doubled.
I don't know much more of any other uses, or exactly what they mean by absorbed, or how the "absorbed" energy will be converted to electricity. Also, does this mean they reflect absolutely no lights? because there could be a lot of uses for that too.
We used to have one of these out in Daggett, California, called Solar One. It cost too much to keep all the mirrors operational, supposedly. Although this paper just says the plant itself used too much power.
Argh. Link got lost. Trying again... http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983asme.confS....B
Actually 11MW isn't that whopping. Take Seabrook Nuclear Power Station. It generates 1.2 Gigawatts (enough for 900,000 households in New England); and here's whats really amazing about it. It does it at night as well!
http://www.solucar.es/
Its definately 11MW, it also says it will generate 23GWh per year.
Maybe I'm crazy but can't we figure out how to make something like this work w/o creating a huge blinding light?
Seems to me that my solar water heater's just black absorbing light. I know it's a different technology but still- who wants to live next to a gigantic, phallic disco ball?
"who wants to live next to a gigantic, phallic disco ball?"
I don't know, would you rather live next door to a coal or nuclear powerplant ?
Marc-O: Coal & nuclear aren't our only options besides solar.
I live about 7 blocks from a bioenergy plant. Not bad & I know where our local farm waste goes.
Didn't I see this two years ago in the movie Sahara?
The deep dark secret about solar power that the green people don't want you to know about: It only works during the day and it doesn't work well when it's cloudy. So you can't use it all the time and there's no good way to save large amounts of electricity for later. But don't let those facts stop you from adopting it on a major scale for your country.
Well solar power at the moment isn't efficient, but you could use any excess power to electrolyze some water to get hydrogen. Store that hydrogen to power cars/fuel cells maybe?
I stopped watching after he said that it costs 3 times as much as their normal power supply.....3 TIMES!!.....screw that
ScOObyDoo @ May 4th 2007 5:17PM
Yeah, except it doesn't exist yet. It's all "proposed".
Did you even read the article? Some of it has already been built, it currently powers 6000 homes with more to come! So not all proposed. And I would know! I went there last year! My Exchange students dad worked here! Never realised how cool that was until now!
1) Feasibility. The technology involved is relatively low. Every country in the world can do that. This is a plus.
2) Costs. The first nuclear plant was was hugely expensive, mining and treating the uranium is likely to be more expensive than cleaning some mirrors. Just wait for diffusion and you will see a dramatic drop of the cost-per-Kw. And the sun is not likely to end as the fossil...
3) Solar energy hasn't enough density to be efficiently converted in electrical energy? That means that all the people using black pipes on the rooftops to warm the water, solar panels, and so on are wasting energy? The fact is in front of your eyes. Not enough density? You simply use mirrors concentrate the solar radiation to get the right amount. You just need space on the ground and clear sky... Deserts perhaps?
"11MW on pure solar with -0- emissions is not a bad thing. (Well, maybe bad for big-oil) :)"
Why in the world would this be bad for big oil? The world doen't use very much oil to make electricity. I'm amazed at how much public ignoranace there is about energy. Plenty of strong opinions, very little actual knowledge. These are the folks who actually believe that wind power is making a difference.
The Enviromeission solar tower is a better design and far simplerand the output capacity far greater. Am RFP by El Paso Electric was responded to by Enviromission
to provide 200 megawatts (unlike crappy wind, producing RELIABLE power 24/7). This
technology is cheaper than wind, and its output is not garbage electricity like wind power, either - it's output will be worth at least three times the kWhr rates that wind operators are getting. Notice that wind is receiving massive subsidies so it can produce crap that nobody wants. I note that the TERC reported statistic s showinf wind power operating at an insignificant 2.5% during peak demand. When it gets hot or cold and demand peaks, the wind seldom blows. Thus is the death knell
of wind power. Only the ignorant public still believe wind power has any real value. Wind power costs over $6 million per MW, nuclear less than $1 million per MW, and nuclear fuel costs are less than the royalties wind pays the landowners!!! Wind truly sucks.
First "SteamPunk" power plant? Cool!
Interesting idea. I'm graduating this month with an BS in mechanical engineering and going on to masters studies in the fluids and energy group at UW. The most basic driving factor for power production efficiency is the temperature gradient (for the layman, the amount of temperature difference divided by the distance) you can generate. Conventional means of solar power, it seems, have never been able to provide the kind of temperature gradient that this system produces. Still, its commercial viability is questionable. The cost of repair, maintenance, construction are all high relative to its MWattage.
He did. He was referring to a different proposal that another commenter posted.
Pranksters Guide to Seville
Bring Popcorn. Lots and lots of popcorn.
Pranksters Guide to Seville
Bring Popcorn. Lots and lots of popcorn.
Here's some whopping solar and they've been operational for years:
http://www.solel.com/products/pgeneration/ls2/kramerjunction/
The largest operational solar power plant is putting out 11MW today, not far, in Serpa Portugal.
http://www.powerlight.com/success/pdf/Serpa_Fact_Sheet_A4.pdf
The area is semi-arid and the installations seems to have gone almost unnoticed by the local population.
What annoys me about some of these negative dicks is that they sit back behind their pseudo degrees and pick sh1t at those who are having a go. To those who say it wont work at night, BIG DEAL. Who said it had to be the total solution. It at least it helps in some small way.
If we listened to those who bagged the first airplanes we wouldn't have the great planes we have today.
There must be a starting point in which to evolve into something better.
To those pride filled gooses who flag their electrical degrees as some sort of excuse to beat down those who are having a go, I have zero respect for you and your cereal packet degree.
11MW is awesome, that makes it a contender for peak power. I'm wondering , has anyone in this
forum flown over one of these, say, in the California dessert ? Nice link previously posted of
this site.
http://www.solel.com/products/pgeneration/ls2/kramerjunction/
If so is it blinding ? Just curious.
I love the idea of grabbing power from the sun :)
Modeled in Google Earth:
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/884819/an//page//vc/1