Re: 1000 MW solar plant for $1/watt
- From: rlbell <rlbell.nsuid@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2009 12:01:22 -0700 (PDT)
On Jun 2, 9:57 am, Bret Cahill <BretCah...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
(Reuters) - Australia plans to build the world's largest solar
power station with an output of 1000 megawatts in a A$1.4
billion (US$1.05 billion) investment, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said onSunday.
...
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE54G0C820090517
Now, for $1/watt, solar power will actually become interesting !
Rob
It's really about four or more dollars per watt when solar utilization is
figured in.
When peak prices are figured in, it's back down to $1/watt.
Every watt of installed solar will deliver no more than five or
six watt hours in a 24 hour period. That is because the sun does not shine
at night and during the day it follows some sort of a sine curve so the
amount of energy averaged over a day is the mentioned value. That means the
average power is at best 6/24 = .25 or 250 milliwatts. You pay for one watt
and get one quarter that amount on average. Not such a good deal.
Traditional power plants have a much greater utilization.
Power when you don't need it.
Now _that's_ a concept!
Bret Cahill
My fridge and freezer both draw power intermittently on a 24/7 basis.
Averaged over thousands of households it's a very small load.
By my reckoning the average number of fridges per household is nearly
one. The average number of freezers per household is less than the
number of fridges, but it is still very close to one. To figure out
if it is a small load, or not, you do not take the average load, you
add up all of the loads.
A desktop PC uses more juice than modern household refrigeration
equipment.
Most people that I know only switch their computer on when they get
home from work. If they work during the day, that means they turn
them on when there is little solar output.
Most of my other loads are cooking and lighting. Lighting starts when
the sun is dim and half of the cooking is done after sunset. Most
people who work during the day have no need for power besides their
food storage while they are working.
You could probably get a job working for a utility telling their
customers just that.
Lately my utility's advertising campaign has been something to the
effect, "Go to the mall. We need to cut afternoon usage."
We live in different areas.
Solar plants produce very
little power when residential loads are high. Traditional plants
produce power at any time. Traditional plants have much greater
utilization because they produce power when it is needed and used, not
when the sun is out.
Many utilities have web sites where they publish demand in real time.
At 4:00 pm my utility will be putting out 900 MW. At 4 am the output
was 400 MW.
At 4:00pm, insolation is half of what it is at noon. If the
difference is not that stark, the sun isn't that high up in the sky at
noon, lessening the overall output. At 4:00am it is practically nil.
It's not a perfect dovetail but the ac can be turned up a little in
the early afternoon so the consumer can coast a couple hours into the
evening.
There are large numbers of people that either do not posess central
air conditioning or, due to its running costs, do not switch it on,
making this advice as worthless as the paper it is printed on.
.
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