RSS/ATOMSolana Generating Station - Solar Steam Power
By sblackb • Feb 24th, 2008 • Category: Alternative Energy Sources, Features, Slightly Political, but Power ReleatedSolar Power With A new Twist
I rarely buy the local paper because their reporting is so biased and usually quite bad. They like to use terms like “undocumented immigrant ” instead of “illegal” and “alleged terrorist” when speaking of Osama Bin Laden. Something is alleged when we think we know who did it. Since Osama admitted to the attacks on the World Trade Center, I’m gonna go ahead and call him a terrorist.
But today they had an article on the front page that reads, “Plant to brighten state’s solar future.” I couldn’t pass that up, so they got my 50 cents and I took a copy home. Now when I think solar, I think Photovoltaic (PV) because that‘s what’s most common. So when I started reading the article, I stopped to grab a calculator after learning that the new power plant will cover 3 square miles and produce 280 megawatts. That’s enough power for about 70,000 homes; maybe more than 100,000 if they are Watthacker homes. Assuming $4 per watt, the solar panels alone would cost more than 600 million dollars. The article goes on to say that the Solana Power Generating Station will cost in the neighborhood of 1 billion dollars to build and will be operational by 2011. Something didn’t sound right since that would only leave 400 million for infrastructure, so I read on.
To my surprise the plant is not using photovoltaic at all, but rather a parabolic mirror that will collect something we have plenty of here in Arizona - heat energy. The sun’s rays are focused on superheating a petroleum based fluid which is pumped through the network of solar collectors. Heat is then transferred from the oil to water creating steam which powers turbines and creates clean, green energy. Very cool. Maybe even cooler is their ability to use a portion of the daily heat energy to superheat molten salt. The salt has the ability to store the heat energy which will be used to make steam for hours after the sun goes down. Check out the details at Abengoa Solar’s website who will be developing this project.
But that is only if the solar investment tax credit stay around. As it stands today, the recently passed energy bill does not continue the solar tax incentives that are currently available through the end of 2008. If the government does not sneak an extension into another package of pork, then the Solana Generating station will never have a chance to boil water.
Related Articles:
- Solar Panels
- Abengoa Solar Builds Solar Power Generation Station in Arizona
- Green Tags to Green Taxes
- Cutting Energy Consumption and those Power Bills
sblackb is Scott and Liz share a passion for the outdoors and want to help protect the natural beauty of our planet. Scott feels like one of the best ways to accomplish this is to take on responsible power use, generation and learning new methods for better living with less resources.
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[...] Sunday I posted on the new Solana Power Generating station that is being planned for an alfalfa field in central Arizona. Three miles of solar PT1 Trough [...]
A few important points.
This is not new technology. In California over 20 years ago they built the LUZ Solar plants, each one was lower coswt and more energy per dollar. The incentives stopped and so did the plants of this type. The exisitng 10 are still pumping out clean energy after all these years.
The new Abengoa project will only happen if APS can still get the Federal Solar incentive of 30% of any project. The incentive has been voted on twice and failed to be extened each time.
Fossil fuels and nuclear get big incentives in the Federal Energy Bills and have for over 20 years. Big Oil also gets 12.1 Billion a year and has since the 70’s , yet we import over 60% of our oil each day !
If qall the subsidies and tax writeoffs stopped it would be very clear that Wind and Solar are the best choice.