280-megawatt solar plant headed to Arizona desert

And you thought the Nellis solar energy system in Nevada was intimidating. Truth be told, that 14-megawatt project pales mightily in comparison to the one being dreamed up for Arizona, and even Cleantech's 80-megawatt endeavor in California can only bow to the 280-megawatt Solana Generating Station. According to the Arizona Public Service Company, the facility will boast "enough capacity to serve 70,000 customers" when it (hopefully) becomes operational in 2011, and it will also create 1,500 construction jobs and 85 technical positions once open. So, now that the game of leapfrog is official on in the solar biz, who's game for trumping this one?

[Via Inhabitat]

[Jesus_Christ @ Feb 26th 2008 7:35AM]

Waste of money. It doesn't even blend.

[Flashpoint @ Feb 26th 2008 7:57AM]

Can it generate 1.21 Gigawatts?

[Nietzche @ Feb 26th 2008 8:53AM]

I think the word you're looking for, good sir, is "Jiggawatts".

[eggothewaffle @ Feb 26th 2008 7:38AM]

If SimCity 2000 told me anything at all, it's that these power plants are terrible and the player should just skip to the microwave satellite plants (or fusion if they are patient enough!).

Hmph!

[Aprime @ Feb 26th 2008 7:40AM]

Crashing/landing into those was awesome in Sim Copter.

[Sasha S. @ Feb 26th 2008 7:42AM]

Now this is a serious power! This type of solar technology is ready, proven and available on the market.

Consider for a moment that typical nuclear power plant has between 600 and 1500 MW installed capacity - then ask yourself what type of power station would rather have in your back yard. Right, me too!

I suspect that more and more of such power stations will start popping up all across southern USA. And rightly so. Well done Arizona! One down - dozens more to come!

[eggothewaffle @ Feb 26th 2008 7:44AM]

Actually, I'd want a nuclear power plant; the prospects of playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. irl is just too delicious :]

[Jesus_Christ @ Feb 26th 2008 7:53AM]

No. Solar power is still a shitty, expensive and pretty much a waste of money when it comes to power distribution. Not only does it have a low power output per unit area, factor in the extreme cost of the plant, the high maintenance costs and the fact that it basically only works for 12 hours a day and you'll see what I mean.

If "green power" or whatever you hippies are after, nuclear power and hydro is the way to go. Just because you hear Arizona doesn't mean that the place is devoid of sufficient water. Remember Hoover Dam?

[adrian @ Feb 26th 2008 8:23AM]

I agree, and with the amount of land and sunlight the US has, they could of been doing this a long time ago.

[John Hughes @ Feb 26th 2008 8:49AM]

The worst thing is burning fossil fuel (coal and natural gas) to make electricity. This treats the air and everyone's backyard like a sewer. So both solar and nuclear are OK. You seem to be using nuclear's bad public image as a convenient way to make your point.

[cmonkey @ Feb 26th 2008 8:57AM]

The typical nuclear reactor generates 600 to 1500 MWe. A plant typical has two or more reactors. Plus, its electricity that is generated 24/7 at that rate (minus outages), while solar only hits its peak on the brighest days.

Giant solar plants in the desert are good, but for the rest of the country, you need more compact plants like nuclear.

[Ladderless @ Feb 26th 2008 11:40AM]

"Consider for a moment that typical nuclear power plant has between 600 and 1500 MW installed capacity - then ask yourself what type of power station would rather have in your back yard. Right, me too!"

Just how big IS your back yard?!?

How much wilderness are you willing to chew up building these plants?

[erhan @ Feb 26th 2008 3:25PM]

'Jesus_christ'

Hoover Damn is Nevada,dumbass.

[Thermos14 @ Feb 26th 2008 7:50AM]

Yawn. Wake me up when we can generate 1.21 gigawatts.

[Lifelion @ Feb 26th 2008 7:54AM]

Nice picture!
If you want a greener life.
Start by cutting trees and you'll get a nice blue field.

[Aprime @ Feb 26th 2008 8:08AM]

Enjoy your b&.

[dervheid @ Feb 26th 2008 8:28AM]

Exactly how much space will this occupy? Looks like it'll have a huge area/megawatt ratio.
Would't be ANY use here in the UK.
@ sasha s
You must have one ENORMOUS 'back yard'!

[Dorf @ Feb 26th 2008 9:04AM]

It will cost more then a billion dollars and cover 3 square miles. That seems like a lot for what little power it will produce. Plus customers generally pay more per kilowatt hour with solar over other methods of power.

Solar does have it uses, and this is probably a good thing to build, especially if you have the room, and 300+ days of sun like 'zona has. However, anybody who thinks this is a replacement for coal or nuclear is smoking some fine weed.

Coal accounts for over 55% of our power generated already. (And it's projected to rise, not fall.) Unless we come up with some radical new massive power source soon, nuclear is the choice if you don't want to pollute the air.

[Wwhat @ Feb 26th 2008 10:41PM]

Coal will rise as long as bush is in power yeah, but what about after?

[chris @ Feb 26th 2008 9:03AM]

theirs very large areas especially in texas with 0 development, thats why solar is good their, i mean i know a guy with 230 acres of land and he doesnt use more than 10 acres... and thats 1 guy ...

so in the sunny areas of the USA, and the 100% renewable clean energy from solar, and the large available space in places like texas make solar great....

ALSO for the people calling solar expensive your really truely uninformed!

.....

SolarThermal power s EXTREMELY cheap, ... Solar PV panels are still on the expensive side bu are comming down, most of the newer plants like this are utilizing large scale Solar Thermal trough designs, hell you can build a solar trough generator for a hundred or 2 hundred dollars in a diy project.

[Dorf @ Feb 26th 2008 9:11AM]

Actually, it is more expensive...

According to the article I found on azcentral.com, the average customer pays 9 cents per kilowatt-hour "for electricity generated through combined nuclear, coal, natural-gas and renewable sources."

Once the new plant is running, the Arizona Public Service will pay the solar company 14 cents per kilowatt-hour for electricity generated. Will they just pass that 14 cents right off to the customers, or will jack it up a bit to, you know, cover some administrative costs?

I have no idea what that would cost the average customer per year. And seriously, I don't have a problem paying a few extra bucks to get cleaner energy. But there is a limit, though.

[raygundan @ Feb 26th 2008 1:11PM]

Remember that this plant is essentially a peak-only generation plant. Comparing the cost to the average rate (which includes the cheap off-peak hours) is silly. Compare it to the average rate for the time when the plant produces, which will be almost entirely the peak rate.

[luckycharms711 @ Feb 26th 2008 2:33PM]

14-9= 5 cents extra to the consumer per kwh not 14.

[Wwhat @ Feb 26th 2008 10:44PM]

I pay 38 cents, that's with tax.
Of course I'm in europe and the tax is 75% of the price.. :/
But it's green :)

[Dorf @ Feb 26th 2008 9:13AM]

Crap, forgot to list that article.. Sorry.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/0221biz-solar0221.html

[raygundan @ Feb 26th 2008 9:21AM]

@Jesus_Christ:

It's not a photovoltaic plant. It's not even a mirror/tower arrangement-- it's a braindead simple arrangement with trough mirrors heating a fluid-filled pipe that runs down the middle of the trough. This has several advantages:

1. Mirrors are cheap.
2. Plumbing is cheap.
3. The heat is stored for night generation.
4. Construction costs are comparable to a new coal plant.
5. There are no ongoing fuel costs.
6. There are thousands of square miles of nothing in AZ.
7. All that nothing gets consistent, high-intensity sun. (Roughly double the midwest)

It may not make sense in downtown Seattle, but there is no argument left against well-designed solar construction like this in middle-of-nowhere Arizona.

[RC @ Feb 26th 2008 8:48PM]

Thousands of miles of nothing? Tell that to the desert unicorn.

[raygundan @ Feb 26th 2008 9:26AM]

For comparison to other types of plants, I did a quick google:

The proposed AMP-Ohio coal plant is expected to cost $2.9 billion and produce 960MW. This plant is expected to cost $1 billion and produce 280MW. If this is true, this facility only costs 20% more per megawatt than the Ohio coal plant, doesn't have any ongoing fuel costs, and doesn't produce any emissions.

[polvadis @ Feb 26th 2008 1:15PM]

It also produces much less power and these days, that's unacceptable. We live in an energy hungry world. The only way solar will catch up to coal or nuclear plants is with solar concentrator systems that take the same sun a panel gets and magnifies is 800x to get a much better power output.

Solar panels, although getting cheaper, are yesterdays technology.

[raygundan @ Feb 26th 2008 1:31PM]

@polvadis

There are no solar panels here. This is a trough mirror plant. No silicon crystals needed. Mirrors and pipes and a steam turbine.

You make a good point about production, though. In my haste I compared peak wattage rather than total production. This plant will cost roughly 2.5x more per kWh when compared to that example coal plant I dug up.

However: the flip side of being daylight-only is that this plant only needs to be profitable compared to the daytime peak rate, not the average rate.

And while both plants will require maintenance in the years to come, this one will never require fuel, and will never be subject to fuel cost fluctuations or shutdowns if transportation or supply become restricted.

[TVGenius @ Feb 26th 2008 9:58AM]

As far as the fact that there's only 12 hours of sunlight, I guess you aren't familiar with the weather we have here (I live 90 minutes west of the plant's location). The demand for air conditioning during daylight hours, especially in the afternoon, is incredibly high, so during daylight hours it will be awesome to have this in our state. Any more capacity (and redundancy) we have to keep the cool air coming when it's 123 outside is fine by me.

(Side note... a lot of people who move here and aren't used to the weather manage to rack up power bills of over $400 for an apartment the first month by setting their thermostat at 76 or below.)

[John @ Feb 27th 2008 9:12AM]

Good point TVgenius. What they should do in our state is make attractive incentives to homeowners and business owners to put solar panels on our rooftops. That would certainly take the edge off of that peak usage. Plus they should buy surplus energy produced at the same rate they sell it to us.

[BJSCHW @ Feb 26th 2008 10:05AM]

Here is a description and video of the process we are designing.

http://technology4life.wordpress.com/2008/02/21/abengoa-solar-to-build-a-280-mw-csp-plant-in-arizona/

[insertAlias @ Feb 26th 2008 10:09AM]

I just signed the spammer up for the X10 newsletter, which happens to include a free subscription to all the spam on the internet.

[BJSCHW @ Feb 26th 2008 10:19AM]

Looking at the video it is a little different than the technology we will use in Arizona. Here is a link to the technology that will be used in Arizona.

http://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/tec_torre.jsp

[Matthew S. Schwartz @ Feb 26th 2008 10:35AM]

Did anyone else think that aerial shot looked kinda like a circuit board? "Look at all the capacitors!"

My god, I'm a nerd.

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 26th 2008 10:59AM]

Sahara.

[Lotabeer @ Feb 26th 2008 1:58PM]

Sahara was a mirror/tower setup. This is a hemispherical(ish) mirror/fluid (sodium?) setup.

[JuggleNuts @ Feb 26th 2008 2:38PM]

My bad.

[Matt O @ Feb 26th 2008 11:00AM]

haha i used spamyourenemies.comm i think he is going to have to change his email.

[John F. @ Feb 26th 2008 12:52PM]

> So, now that the game of leapfrog is official on
> in the solar biz, who's game for trumping this one?

It's been pre-trumped. Stirling Energy Systems inked deals back in 2005 with Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric for two larger solar thermal plants (500MW and 300MW).

http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/news/2005/11/69528

[Eliot @ Feb 26th 2008 3:34PM]

"would be the largest solar-power facility in the world if operational today"

... of course in 2011 it won't be. I love the qualifiers they have to use in these press releases. That previous Nellis post is also smaller than the existing Nevada Solar One.

[John F. @ Feb 26th 2008 4:42PM]

> I love the qualifiers they have to use in these press
> releases

Yes. They all do that.

In this case, they also choose to consider SEGS -- the solar power plant complex in the Mojave Desert -- to be separate systems, because collectively SEGS adds up to 354MW.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations

But this is certainly a big one. I hope it flies.

[phanbouy @ Feb 26th 2008 1:52PM]

Your name is TP? TP for my bung hole. BUNG hole.

[Jagannath A @ Feb 26th 2008 3:10PM]

fking morons bringing bad name to genuine Indian professionals
its because of you sick fkers we genuine ppl have to be embarrassed

[Russell @ Feb 26th 2008 3:26PM]

Does it play doom?

[skulldriveshaft @ Feb 26th 2008 7:41PM]

that's just awesome!

[dean @ Feb 26th 2008 8:20PM]

Beats out the big one going up in Australia. The great/bad thing about renewables like solar and wind is that they can only really go in certain areas. This solar farm is great in Arizona and other sunny places, but isn't the most effective in cloudy places (yes, I know PV panels will still work in cloudy areas) like the Pacific Northwest. Wind would be awesome off-shore and certain other places, but not in others. So if we had more renewable energy structure, it would be more diverse (good), yet not as easy to implement as fossil fuel plants. That is my theory.

[Dr Buzz0 @ Feb 27th 2008 7:05PM]

What a ridiculous amount of money for a comparatively small amount of power generated. A nominal power plant will output at least 1000 megawatts and a decent sized one will do 2 gigawatts or more.

This massive expenditure would be justified if it had any hope of making a dent in things, but it doesn't. It's a huge amount of money for a pitifully small amount of grid power. The return on investment would be much higher if it were spent on numerous other things like improving grid effeciency or better hydroelectric systems or of course nuclear energy.

[ayumi @ Mar 3rd 2008 4:13AM]

怕是怕政府明是增加工作機會
實際上是在搬運納稅人的財產...
最近不是一堆弊案?
明著說要推動國家科技發展
後面都忙著搬錢 國庫任你掏空 Orz