$2.2 billion solar thermal plant known as Ivanpah

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JeremyW said:
GRA said:
Then you have to remember that the cost of generation is only part of the equation, there's also storage (or use of fossil-fuels instead) that has to be considered; these were CSP plants _with_ storage. As to your point about 'heads I win, tails you lose' bailouts, I don't disagree.
Ivapnah does not contain any storage.
Oops, you're right. We were discussing CSP w/storage upthread, and I mentally lumped Ivanpah in with Solana and the rest. They say the memory is the second thing to go, and I've forgotten what the first was ;)
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Issues at Ivanpah and solar-thermal in general, via the WSJ. Nothing we didn't already know, but this provides more details: ...
Here is another link to the same article at Marketwatch (which is not paywalled): High-tech solar projects fail to deliver

Note that if you need to burn four hours' worth of natural gas in the morning to get this thing started every morning, then it seems the major benefit of these solar-thermal-electric plant is not such a strong proposition.
There's absolutely no reason why they 'need' to burn natural gas (fossil gas) - they can use biogas just as easily. The tech doesn't 'need' to run heaters regardless of the fuel though - it just needs it to generate steam early in order to get an 'immediate start' - it can just as easily wait until the sun's a bit higher in the sky to "run smoothly and efficiently."
 
IF large-scale PV generation costs (as well as electricity storage costs, for when the sun isn't available) continue to fall in price as rapidly as they have recently, it will be difficult for any other electricity source to compete, in the not-too-distant future.

Buffett Scores Cheapest Electricity Rate With Nevada Solar Farms

Warren Buffett’s Nevada utility has lined up what may be the cheapest electricity in the U.S., and it’s from a solar farm.

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s NV Energy agreed to pay 3.87 cents a kilowatt-hour for power from a 100-megawatt project that First Solar Inc. is developing, according to a filing with regulators.

That’s a bargain. Last year the utility was paying 13.77 cents a kilowatt-hour for renewable energy. The rapid decline is a sign that solar energy is becoming a mainstream technology with fewer perceived risks. It’s also related to the 70 percent plunge in the price of panels since 2010, and the fact that the project will be built in Nevada, the third-sunniest state.

“That’s probably the cheapest PPA I’ve ever seen in the U.S.,” Kit Konolige, a utility analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence in New York, said Tuesday. “It helps a lot that they’re in the Southwest when there’s good sun.”

The power-purchase agreement for energy from First Solar’s Playa Solar 2 project was the cheapest offered to NV Energy this year for new power plants. The utility also agreed to pay 4.6 cents a kilowatt-hour for power from SunPower Corp.’s 100-megawatt Boulder Solar project, the best price offered last year.

“Power generated from solar plants is cost-competitive with power from traditional, fossil fuel burning plants, and becoming more cost-competitive every day,” SunPower Chief Executive Officer Tom Werner said in an e-mailed statement.

Steven Krum, a First Solar spokesman, said the contracts demonstrate that solar projects, especially large-scale power plants, are becoming cheaper to build and operate...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-07/buffett-scores-cheapest-electricity-rate-with-nevada-solar-farms
 
Excellent news! Assuming the interconnections are available (always a lot of Nimbyism opposing new ones), that will handle peak daytime loads at far lower cost, and, provided daytime charging gets installed, will handle any number of EVs while also providing grid storage (assuming V2G). Or we just need to get storage costs down similarly to handle the base load. So far, even the most recent U.S. utility battery storage projects all seem to be sized for nothing more than frequency/voltage stabilization, with maybe a little bit of peak shaving thrown in. Here's another take on Buffett and PV's potential vis a vis petroleum or ethanol, via GCC:
Opinion: Why Buffett Bet A Billion On Solar: Miles Per Acre Per Year
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2015/06/20150629-hewitt.html

The CA gas price quoted is a bit high, and currently (2:14 PDT) $3.612: http://www.californiagasprices.com/Prices_Nationally.aspx
My cheapest gas locally is $3.06.
 
The 7c/kWh quoted in that article is out of date. Buffet just signed a PPA for 3.87c/kWh.

http://m.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/buffett-strikes-cheapest-electricity-price-in-us-with-nevada-solar-farm_100020120/
 
drees said:
The 7c/kWh quoted in that article is out of date. Buffet just signed a PPA for 3.87c/kWh.

http://m.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/buffett-strikes-cheapest-electricity-price-in-us-with-nevada-solar-farm_100020120/

Well, yeah, it's out of date. Did you miss the fact that my message, which began with "Excellent news!", was in reply to Ed's post announcing the $0.0387/kWh PPA?
 
GRA said:
Did you miss the fact that my message, which began with "Excellent news!", was in reply to Ed's post announcing the $0.0387/kWh PPA?
Doh, I did. :oops:

That's what happens when reading a slow loading website with insufficient contrast on a mobile device.
 
drees said:
GRA said:
Did you miss the fact that my message, which began with "Excellent news!", was in reply to Ed's post announcing the $0.0387/kWh PPA?
Doh, I did. :oops:

That's what happens when reading a slow loading website with insufficient contrast on a mobile device.
;) It is getting pretty damned frustrating. :( The contrast is okay on a Chromebook, not so hot (setting apart quoted text) on my desktop, and I don't have a smart phone (enough, already - I need my daily non-digital time)! But the wait for a page load is just getting ridiculous. ~20 seconds response time per is a huge time suck.
 
Could California’s massive Ivanpah solar power plant be forced to go dark?
A federally backed, $2.2 billion solar project in the California desert isn’t producing the electricity it is contractually required to deliver to PG&E Corp., which says the solar plant may be forced to shut down if it doesn’t receive a break Thursday from state regulators.
So, what would keeping Ivanpah open mean? More taxpayer money wasted to prop up this failed investment by huge corporations? Why not let these corporations ACTUALLY accept the risk for their investments?

It seems clear: PV would have cost significantly less and would have caused significantly less environmental damage, particularly if it had been put on rooftops instead of in the desert. I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
 
RegGuheert said:
Could California’s massive Ivanpah solar power plant be forced to go dark?
A federally backed, $2.2 billion solar project in the California desert isn’t producing the electricity it is contractually required to deliver to PG&E Corp., which says the solar plant may be forced to shut down if it doesn’t receive a break Thursday from state regulators.
So, what would keeping Ivanpah open mean? More taxpayer money wasted to prop up this failed investment by huge corporations? Why not let these corporations ACTUALLY accept the risk for their investments?

It seems clear: PV would have cost significantly less and would have caused significantly less environmental damage, particularly if it had been put on rooftops instead of in the desert. I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
At the time it was proposed and construction began, no one was predicting that PV would cost substantially less, because the Chinese PV tsunami hadn't struck yet. It was only well along in development that the economics shifted to favor PV, and Google announced at that time that they wouldn't back any more CSP plants like this one. Now, given the sunk costs, it would make no sense to shut the plant down, unless there's no possibility for improvement. And CSP still has the advantage of storage/load-shifting, while other( inexpensive) storage for renewables has yet to appear in the scale required.
 
GRA said:
Now, given the sunk costs, it would make no sense to shut the plant down, unless there's no possibility for improvement.
I wish the taxpayer would underwrite my losses. Sorry, but this has been subsidized from the get-go. It's time to quit throwing money to the wind (er, sun).
GRA said:
And CSP still has the advantage of storage/load-shifting, while other( inexpensive) storage for renewables has yet to appear in the scale required.
Sorry, but I think you're wrong about this. I will repeat what I just wrote:
RegGuheert said:
I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
Perhaps it wasn't clear. If you have to burn a LOT of natural gas to get the thing going each morning, how is that a benefit over simply burning the gas in the evening when you need the electricity? (Ivanpah has had to ask for permission to burn significantly more natural gas than originally planned.)
 
RegGuheert said:
GRA said:
Now, given the sunk costs, it would make no sense to shut the plant down, unless there's no possibility for improvement.
I wish the taxpayer would underwrite my losses. Sorry, but this has been subsidized from the get-go. It's time to quit throwing money to the wind (er, sun).
GRA is right. The sunk cost is in. There's no point in shutting it down, keeping it running costs a tiny fraction of what it cost to build. What's keeping the cost of the electricity generated high now is financing. If the plant were allowed to go bankrupt, the taxpayer is very likely the one who would take a bath in this scenario. It's in the taxpayer's best interest for the plant to keep running, even if it's missing it's performance targets.

RegGuheert said:
Ivanpah has had to ask for permission to burn significantly more natural gas than originally planned.
"Significantly more" than a small amount is still a relatively small amount.

PUC gives Ivanpah plant operators more time to increase output
The Ivanpah plant near the California-Nevada border is producing about two-thirds of its annual production goal
The plant’s owners have agreed to pay PG&E an undisclosed sum in exchange for getting time to improve the plant’s electricity output. The deal followed realizations that the plant is failing to meet its production obligations to the utility.
 
drees said:
GRA is right. The sunk cost is in. There's no point in shutting it down, keeping it running costs a tiny fraction of what it cost to build. What's keeping the cost of the electricity generated high now is financing. If the plant were allowed to go bankrupt, the taxpayer is very likely the one who would take a bath in this scenario. It's in the taxpayer's best interest for the plant to keep running, even if it's missing it's performance targets.
Taxpayers are only on the hook because of ridiculous loan guarantees made by the government. If the government is forced to repay its own loans, then ownership should revert to the government instead of rewarding the corporation for miserable investment choices.

A better approach would be for the original owners to eat their investment and be forced to sell the plant for pennies on the dollar. Then you will find out if it really makes sense to continue operation. As it stands, you have government bureaucrats spending other people's money with no real accountability in place.
drees said:
RegGuheert said:
Ivanpah has had to ask for permission to burn significantly more natural gas than originally planned.
"Significantly more" than a small amount is still a relatively small amount.
And? That statement in no way invalidates my claim:
RegGuheert said:
I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
Today, Ivanpah burns natural gas for 4.5 hours each day rather than the 1 hour which was originally indicated. Does Ivanpah *really* provide more than 4.5 hours of electricity into the evening hours. No, this "benefit" of solar thermal really is a mirage.

Further, I indicated that
RegGuheert said:
It seems clear: PV would have cost significantly less and would have caused significantly less environmental damage, particularly if it had been put on rooftops instead of in the desert.
It appears I'm not the only one who feels this way:
Dividing up the 377 megawatts into the 140,000 homes it's alleged to support during comes out to 2400 watts per home. Installing 2400 watts of PV on each of those 140,000 homes would cost $8000-8500 per home at 2015 installed prices (pre-subsidy), and would take MUCH less stress off the grid during peak hours than Ivanpah can. That adds up to $1.2 billion, a considerable discount from the $1.6 billion in loan guarantees cited. Spending the difference in up front cost on distributed grid-tied batteries would probably exceed the storage capacity at Ivanpah, and would be far more flexible too.
So, tell me this: Why does the government feel justified in giving massive subsidies to huge multinational corporations to build expensive solar generators that will cause homeowners to pay more money for electricity when instead they could have given the same amount of money BACK to the taxpayers to allow them to nearly eliminate their electricity bills?

No, I'm not in favor of ill-conceived projects like Ivanpah which are, in reality, just hand-outs to corporations to allow them to charge more money from the ratepayers of the utilities.

All of this is taking place at the same time that the utilities in CA are making it much more difficult for homeowners to install PV on their homes.
 
RegGuheert said:
Today, Ivanpah burns natural gas for 4.5 hours each day rather than the 1 hour which was originally indicated. Does Ivanpah *really* provide more than 4.5 hours of electricity into the evening hours. No, this "benefit" of solar thermal really is a mirage.
Burning some natural gas != using natural gas for all of its power generation.

From the article you referenced, on the request to the California Energy Commission to increase the plant's natural gas consumption:

Above Article said:
The commission’s staff analysis noted that the request would increase the plant’s carbon dioxide equivalent emissions limit from 62 pounds per megawatt hour (lb/MWh) to 75 lb/MWh
In contrast, a natural gas plant produces about 1,200 pounds of CO2 per MWh, per EIA. So Ivanpah is still a low carbon energy source.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
Burning some natural gas != using natural gas for all of its power generation.
No one ever said that it did. Read it again:
RegGuheert said:
I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
The point is that PV plus a natural gas peaker plant could produce the same electricity as the Ivan plant while costing far less money to build, consuming less natural gas, doing far less damage to the environment AND allowing many ratepayers to nearly eliminate their electricity bill instead of raising the rates for ALL ratepayers and ALL taxpayers. Without the irresponsible guarantees provided by the government, this mistake would never have happened because it would not have been funded.
 
RegGuheert said:
I'm willing to bet that the production into the evening could have been accomplished by simply be building a natural gas peaker plant for that purpose. Likely it would use less natural gas than Ivanpah does.
The numbers from my previous post make that unlikely. If Ivanpah is averaging 75 lbs CO2/MWh, and a natural gas plant produces 1200 lbs CO2/MWh, then when replacing Ivanpah as a thought exercise only about 75/1200 = 6% of Ivanpah's output could come from a natural gas plant without raising CO2 production.

So what we need is Ivanpah's power production curve over the course of a day. I imagine if you took that curve, and overlaid a PV production curve, the difference in areas would be more than 6%. I.e. you'd need to supplement the PV production with more than 6% natural gas power to match Ivanpah's production curve.

Of course, without Ivanpah's power production curve this is all speculation.

As to whether or not Ivanpah should have been built, I don't have an opinion on that.

Cheers, Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
If Ivanpah is averaging 75 lbs CO2/MWh,...
I'm sorry, but you've been lied to. According to this article, quoting the California Energy Commission, Ivanpah produced 46,000 tonnes of CO2 in 2014. This article indicates that Ivanpah produced 424,000 MWh of electricity that same year.

So, let's do the math:

46,000 tonnes * 2205 lbs./tonne / 424,000 MWh = 239 lbs CO2/MWh

That is more than THREE times what you have been told. So why is there a discrepancy? Here is the answer:
Utility Dive said:
Ivanpah escaped being classified by the CEC as a non-renewable resource because natural gas burned at night to maintain the system is not counted toward its 5% fossil fuel allowance.
According to the CEC, the 10-year-old Pastoria Energy Facility in CA produces electricity from natural gas with CO2 emissions at a rate of 300 kg/MWh (or 661 lbs./MWh).

In other words, the brand new Ivanpah "solar" facility produced 36% as much CO2/MWh in 2014 as a 10-year-old natural gas facility. (Perhaps Ivanpah did better in 2015, but I cannot find the CO2 numbers for 2015.)

As I said, it is much better to install PV and provide for the evening load using natual gas generation. Rooftop PV has the added benefit of REDUCING the load on the grid while centralized generators like Ivanpah increase the load on the grid.
 
Thanks for running that down.

The situation is still not clear. If Ivanpah is burning a lot of natural gas at night to generate electricity at night, well a PV + peak natural gas replacement would still have to do the same.

If you want to compare Ivanpah to a PV + peak natural gas replacement in terms of CO2 production, there's two possible criticisms of Ivanpah. During the day (and early evening?) Ivanpah is using about 6-12% of the CO2 budget a gas plant would use. So if its power production profile is the same as PV, that would all be a waste. But if its power production profile is flatter than PV, it could be that it beats PV + gas peaker during the day.

The other issue is the efficiency at night. If Ivanpah is burning natural gas at night less efficiently than a gas peaker plant, then that extra CO2 would be a waste.

But so far we don't have enough data to answer either of those questions.

Cheers,
Wayne
 
wwhitney said:
The situation is still not clear. If Ivanpah is burning a lot of natural gas at night to generate electricity at night, well a PV + peak natural gas replacement would still have to do the same.
The situation is clear: Ivanpah does not produce electricity at night (beyond early evening). But Ivanpah DOES burn natural gas at night. Assumedly they need to keep the system warm.

But the CEC, in their infinite wisdom, does not count that as burning fossil fuels since they are not actually producing electricity while burning the natural gas:
Pete Danko said:
In 2014, Ivanpah used 867 million cubic feet (mmcf) of natural gas. It helps jump start the system in the morning, mostly, and to get through some cloudy periods. At a typical gas-fired power plant, that would produce around 85 gigawatt-hours of electricity. Ivanpah produced 420 GWh in 2014 – so you could say natural gas use was equal to about 20 percent of the plant’s output. This is way over the 5 percent allowed by California regulations, but a California Energy Commission spokesman said much of the natural gas Ivanpah uses isn’t held against it.

“(N)atural gas used between the end of daily generation and the start of generation the next day is not considered as contributing to electricity generation and therefore, not included in calculating the percent of non-renewable fuel used at the facility,” the CEC’s Michael Ward said in an email earlier this month.

Ivanpah’s output jumped up to 652 GWh in 2015, so if natural gas use held steady, the plant’s generation-to-gas-use ratio would have improved substantially. But while we won’t know exactly how much gas Ivanpah used in 2015 for a few months, some hints are available: Between August and November in 2015, gas consumption at one of its three units was double what it was in 2014.
 
OK, so your bet is looking better, but the situation still isn't clear. We are back to my second post today, except the margin is 20% instead of 6%. If Ivanpah makes enough of its electricity in the evening, it may still be a CO2 win over PV + gas peaker.

If Ivanpah ever adds thermal storage, that could improve its CO2 footprint.

Cheers, Wayne
 
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