eSolar Receives Funding for 33MW Modular Solar Power Plants

From a 4/21 press release:

eSolar™, a producer of modular solar thermal power plants, announced (pdf) that is has closed $130 million in funding from Idealab, Google.org, Oak Investment Partners, and other investors for the construction and deployment of pre-fabricated power plants. Their distributed solar thermal plants achieve economies of scale at 33 MW, and are modularly scaled to fit the needs of large and small utilities.

"The eSolar™ power plant is based on mass manufactured components, and designed for rapid construction, uniform modularity, and unlimited scalability. Rather than over-engineering the solution, eSolar’s smart scalable solar architecture targets what we see as the four key business obstacles facing the sector: price, scalability, rapid deployment, and grid impact."

-- Asif Ansari, CEO of eSolar.

. . . Centering on eSolar’s 33 MW pre-fab form-factor, the company’s modular design translates to minimal land requirements. The company’s solar power plant solutions are tailored to fit local resources and produce a low environmental footprint, favoring a straightforward siting and permitting process.

. . . eSolar has secured land rights in the southwest United States to support the production and transmission of over 1 GW of power. eSolar will have a fully operational power plant later this year in southern California.

From their website:

The economic tipping point, for solar power, occurs when the capital cost of the solar field is less than the capital costs and fuel costs of the traditional system. To address this issue, eSolar has developed a modular power plant architecture designed to take advantage of mass manufactured components at every level.

eSolar has designed a solar field layout that minimizes installation time and cost. By employing a repeating structure and a revolutionary calibration system, eSolar plants come on line quickly . . . Utilizing very low wind profile heliostats, eSolar provides higher reliability in all wind conditions, lower risk of wind damage, and more power plant up-time.

Their power plants are structured on a 33 MW base modules, scalable to over 500 MW facilities, with energy prices that are competitive with fossil fuels, consisting of several thermal receiver towers, each with a field of heliostats. Each module is a complete power plant, consisting of several thermal receiver towers, each with a field of heliostat mirrors, and a central power block with steam turbine and generatore.

Solar heliostats were designed from the ground up to minimize every possible cost. Their heliostats are designed to fit efficiently into shipping containers to keep transportation costs low, and they are pre-assembled at the factory to minimize on-site labor.

If the statement that "prices that are competitive with fossil fuels" turns out to be true, than this is truly a breakthrough in solar technology. eSolar has provided no details about its technology and no specific information about "a fully operational power plant later this year in southern California," unless I have missed that announcement, I could find no reference to it on their website.

Comments

[unregistered]

I wonder what kind of footprint this 33 MW pre-fab form-factor unit requires. Real estate tends to be a premium at the same place where energy demand is.

[Cyril R.]

Real estate tends to be a premium at the same place where energy demand is.

Areas that receive more than 8 kWh per square meter per day ("desert") usually don't have high real estate costs. In fact, it's quite a non-cost. The cost of land preparation can be significant, so a compact design is still a big advantage.

The eSolar approach is interesting as it is very different from traditional power towers. I wonder how it would compare to the Ausra approach. It's too early to tell right now.

[Cyril R.]

There is of course the transmission cost. However, the economics of long distance transmission become excellent with larger amounts of electricity transmitted, so for the tens or hundreds or even more GWs it's a very modest cost. For now, smaller plants can be constructed close to demand centers in high solar direct beam locations. Places like Las Vegas might be a very good locations to commercialize these solar thermal technologies.

[bigTom]

Now we have claims from OptiSolar, a thin film outfit I had not heard of, for several solar farms including a 550MW one! http://venturebeat.com/2007/04/27/secretive-silicon-valley-company-optisolar-builds-largest-solar-farm/

[Kit P]

This a great idea. In fact this is how I would do it if someone gave me a bucket of money and a natural gas pipeline near by.

Of course this is just greenwashing. When the solar industry starts honestly providi

[Bob Wallace]

"Real estate tends to be a premium at the same place where energy demand is."

If you look at a solar radiation map for the US you will see that the sunniest places in the winter include a lot of Nevada desert (close to the HVDC Pacific Intertie grid), a lot of southern Utah desert which gets the sites within reasonable reach of Utah/Colorado.

When you look east you see areas of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi,... where we're not talking Manhattan real estate prices.

Additionally, these projects can be set up on 'spoiled' land. Old industrial sites, brownfields, are good places to site solar farms. And there are probably sturdy grid ties already in place.

[Kit P]

“And there are probably sturdy grid ties already in place.”

You do not need a sturdy grid if you do not make much electricity.

[Luigi Aronson]

Kit P, did you ever post what your vision of how the world gets its energy in the near and distant future?

[Paul F. Dietz]

When you look east you see areas of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi,...
In the SE US, a large fraction of the insolation is diffused through clouds, so concentrating solar systems are less effective.

[Tom Nats]

When will they start making it so smaller businesses can purchase a system like this?

[Bob Wallace]

"When you look east you see areas of South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi,...
In the SE US, a large fraction of the insolation is diffused through clouds, so concentrating solar systems are less effective."

In January you get 4 to 5 kWh per m2 per hour.

In July you get 5 to 6....

I'm betting that in January you have more wind and hydro and less AC demand.

[bigTom]

"In January you get 4 to 5 kWh per m2 per hour. In July you get 5 to 6..." Wow! Thats incredibly good, considering that the solar "constant" is about 1.35KW/M**2. And the standard accepted intensity at the earths surface is 1KW/M**2. So I figure youd have to move the earth to roughly the orbit of Mercury! I suspect it should have read -per day.

[Bob Wallace]

Well, I'm the first to admit that I'm operating in the shallow end of my knowledge pool. So please check this out.

I used this page...

http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/old_data/nsrdb/redbook/atlas/Table.html

I selected 'Average - January - Flat Plate Tilted Latitude + 15 Degrees' and 'Average - July - Flat Plate Tilted Latitude - 15 Degrees'.

Did I do something wrong?

Is the site incorrect?

I figured that since this page is put up by U.S. Department of Energy it ought to be halfway trustworthy....

--

Oops, took a closer look at my earlier post. Looks like it was me. I should have said "per day" rather than "per hour".

Anyway, aside from my typo, the point is that there does seem to be some usable sunlight in Mississippi in the winter.

Wasn't that the discussion at hand?

[Benjamin Cole]

The idea of standardization and buildability, whether for nuke plants, or solar, or wind, is brilliant.
Too many greenies act like their moral vision is enough. It is true, the external costs of fossil fuel consumption should be taxed.
But greenies need to make sure their ideas make money sense. I like this idea, and hope it works.

[Alex]

The design is based on the model of a classic Greek amphi-theatre: o.618 of the maximum radius is the stage radius.

[Cyril R.]

Well actually Paul Dietz is correct, CSP is not that good a plan for the SE US. But he is incorrect that concentrating solar in general being less effective in diffuse lighting conditions. Non-imaging designs, such as compound parabolic troughs, can capture diffuse radiation very well. These are low concentration though, and are mostly used for domestic hot water (solar boilers). Micro (perhaps Fresnel) photovoltaic concentrators can be designed for reasonably effective concentration of diffuse light.

But eSolar's system uses direct beam resource only, whereas flat plate PV uses both direct and diffuse radiation.

Not only is the direct beam resource in places like Florida much lower than in desert areas of the SW US, it is also much less consistent. Longer lasting, big clouds are common in the SE, and these increase thermal cycling stresses in the receiver as well as making the system unreliable in terms of guaranteed output. So then the thermal storage would have to be greatly oversized, which costs a lot, or a lot of extra natural gas has to be burned. No such problems in the SW: Nevada Solar One for example is contracted for 98% solar fraction, 2% natural gas.

The thing is, in the high GW range, it just makes more sense to build the plants in the best locations and use long distance transmission to get the power where it's needed.

[Bob Wallace]

Cyril - Thanks very much for that post. Lots of good information presented in a courteous manner.

[Chien6372]

5-6KWh/day is the solar radiation received in surface of earth, while 1.35KWh is what solar panel can generate. You may get about 1.35KWh from 10-14KWh/day(highest solar radiation) multiple 13% (efficience).

[Al Fin]

Every region will be different in energy needs and energy solutions. Think local and regional.

The US desert SW is ideal for large scale solar thermal. Large sweeps of barren, sunny desert land cover the southwest. Solar thermal is far superior to photovoltaic due to load matching storage issues.

The US Southeast (Virginia to Texas) is ideal for bio-energy. Almost every square inch of soil is occupied by abundant life. Responsible management of biomass growth

We need to start looking at regional solutions instead of trying to solve national and world energy problems with one or two "magic bullet" technologies.

[Roger Brown]

But he is incorrect that concentrating solar in general being less effective in diffuse lighting conditions. Non-imaging designs, such as compound parabolic troughs, can capture diffuse radiation very well. These are low concentration though, and are mostly used for domestic hot water (solar boilers).

You are contradicting yourself here. CSP is less effective in diffuse sunlight, though not completely useless.

[Kit P]

“Nevada Solar One for example is contracted for 98% solar fraction, 2% natural gas.”

How much electricity is produced and when? It would only seem logical to know the answer to that question before you start building transmission lines “get the power where it's needed.”

I posted a link to this site a while back.

http://www.worldwater.com/pages/projects.html

At the time I was surprised by the 13% CF in New Jersey and the dismal 3-5% in California. Even more interesting is that the links to performance for California PV sites no long work but the one in New Jersey does.

People who make electricity love to brag about performance.

What the SE US has plenty of is humidity. If you folks in California can figure out how to make electricity out of it, I will proclaim your vision. What the SE has is lots of trees.

The best way to reduce electricity use in the summer is a shade tree and daylighted basement. The problem with shade trees and low humidity is the corresponding lack of common sense that is linked to it. Could be mercury BoB W, what do you think?

I watched the Oakland fire from my boat in Almeda. Generally hot weather in the central valley means great winds for sailing (The coldest winter I ever experienced was a summer in San Fransisco, SC, aka MT). That day, there was no true wind on the bay. The water was like glass. With the current, the apparent wind was enough to keep the sails full and have steerage. However, the Santa Anna types winds coming from the east turned the Oakland Hills into an inferno. The live oak and eucalyptus would literally explode.

[Vijayan Chomatil]

It is my absolute hope that they will soon make portable solar dynamic systems for single homeowners. One reason is that in places like Phoenix, solar dynamic systems aren't degraded by extreme heat like all photovotaic systems. Parhaps piezoelectric effect convert heat to vibrational energy.

[david foster]

Anyone have any insight as to just how effective the thermal storage with solar-thermal actually is? If I run the plant for a week of bright sunlight, storing all the energy, and then draw it down linearly over the next (cloudy & rainy) week, will that work?

[Al Fin]

A large solar thermal plant can only run on thermal storage a few hours after the sun goes down. That is enough to provide good load matching for most commercial and residential customers.

[Bob Wallace]

"The solar day is now 24 hours long, according to John O'Donnell, Ausra's executive vice president. He said Spanish solar thermal power station Andasol is currently running 24-7 and has a 16-hour storage reservoir."

http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/03/solar-thermal-power-could-supply-most.html

As discussed here before (by someone more knowledgeable than I ;o) there's no reason why the storage limit could not exceed 16 hours.