The Energy Blog

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.

Sodium Sulfur Batteries to be Used for Energy Storage at MN Windfarm

Xcel Energy, (NYSE: XEL)in partnership with the University of Minnesota, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and the Great Plains Institute, will soon begin testing a one-megawatt sodium-sulfur battery storage system to demonstrate its ability to store wind energy and dispatch it to the electricity grid when needed.

Fully charged, the batteries could power 500 homes for six and one-half hours. Xcel Energy will purchase the batteries from NGK Insulators, Ltd. that will be an integral part of the project. The sodium-sulfur battery is commercially available and versions of this technology are already being used in Japan and in a few US applications, but this is the first U.S. application of the battery as a direct wind energy storage device.

The 50-kilowatt battery modules, 20 in total, will be roughly the size of two semi trailers and weigh approximately 60 tons. They will be able to store about 6.5 megawatt-hours of electricity, with a charge/discharge capacity of one megawatt. When the wind blows, the batteries are charged. When the wind calms down, the batteries can be used to supply energy to the grid as needed.

"Energy storage is key to expanding the use of renewable energy. This technology has the potential to reduce the impact caused by the variability and limited predictability of wind energy generation."

-- Dick Kelly, Xcel Energy chairman, president and CEO.

The project will take place in Luverne, Minn., with the battery installation beginning this spring adjacent to a nearby 11-megawatt wind farm owned by Minwind Energy, LLC. Testing will begin in October and is expected to last up to two years.

Commercial projects are now underway that use flow batteries, compressed air energy storage, thermal energy storage, pumped hydro, and sodium sulfur batteries for energy storage in connection with renewable energy projects.  American Electric Power (AEP) is also using NaS batteries in a couple of their systems, but not in connection with wind power. While not enough experience has been gained with any of these technologies to make any decision as to which technology is best under what conditions, pumped hydro and sodium sulfur batteries are the most well proven and thus seem to be the first choice of electric utilities. Thermal storage is gaining acceptance for use with thermal solar systems, the only energy technology that it is suitable for use with. As Mr. Kelly stated, energy storage is essential to widespread use of renewable energy technologies. 

Sandia, Stirling Energy Systems Set New World Record of 31.25% for Solar-to-Grid Conversion Efficiency

On a perfect New Mexico winter day — with the sky almost 10 percent brighter than usual — Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems (SES) set a new solar-to-grid system conversion efficiency record by achieving a 31.25 percent net efficiency rate. The old 1984 record of 29.4 percent was toppled on SES’s “Serial #3” solar dish Stirling system at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility.

The conversion efficiency is calculated by measuring the net energy delivered to the grid and dividing it by the solar energy hitting the dish mirrors. Auxiliary loads, such as water pumps, computers and tracking motors, are accounted for in the net power measurement.

Each dish unit consists of 82 mirrors formed in a dish shape to focus the light to an intense beam onto a receiver, which transmits the heat energy to a Stirling engine. The engine is a sealed system filled with hydrogen. As the gas heats and cools, its pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the pistons inside the engine, producing mechanical power, which in turn drives a generator and makes electricity.

SolarReserve Formed to Commercialize Solar Power Tower Technology Using Molten Salt Storage

A new company has entered the thermal solar field.  Per their press release:

Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. [NYSE: UTX], and US Renewables Group have formed a new entity, SolarReserve, to commercialize the concentrated solar power tower technology and corresponding molten salt storage system developed by Rocketdyne. This renewable technology will enable utility-scale solar power generation. It is designed to meet a utility's needs with a single installation capable of producing up to 500 MW of peak power.

"Due to the unique ability of the product to store the energy it captures, this system will function like a conventional hydroelectric power plant, but with several advantages. We will have the capability to store the sun's energy and release it on demand. This product is more predictable than water reserves, the supply is free and inexhaustible, and the environmental impact is essentially zero."

Lee Bailey, managing director of US Renewables Group (USRG)

The technology was originally demonstrated in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy at the Solar Two facility in Barstow, Calif. The unique component of the HS Rocketdyne power tower is the central receiver. This high heat flux hardware represents a unique combination of liquid rocket engine heat transfer technology and molten salt handling expertise.

From the WSJ (link only good for 7 days):

Hamilton Sundstrand's Rocketdyne segment will provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. . . .

According to the company, molten salt loses only about 1% of its heat during a day, making it possible to store energy for long periods of time. The salt is a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate.

From CNET:

The technology is expected to be available within three or four years. A representative said the company expects to realize revenue of more than $1 billion in the next 10 years.

Ausra Building First U.S. Production Facility for Thermal Solar

Ausra Inc., a developer of utility-scale solar thermal power, announced Friday it is building the first U.S. manufacturing plant for solar thermal power systems, in Las Vegas. The 130,000-square-foot, highly automated manufacturing and distribution center will produce the reflectors, towers, absorber tubes, and other key components of the company’s solar thermal power plants.

“Ausra can fill four square miles with solar collectors every year from this one factory, enough to provide market-priced zero-pollution power to 500,000 homes,"

Bob Fishman, president and CEO of Ausra.

In November 2007, Ausra and California utility PG&E announced a power purchase agreement for a one-square-mile, 177-megawatt power plant, enough to power over 120,000 homes, to be built in central California

The production plant will begin regular operation in April 2008. Ausra’s new Las Vegas facility will manufacture the solar field equipment for the PG&E project and for other power projects throughout the American Southwest. The factory, the first of its kind in the U.S., will be capable of making over 700 megawatts (electric) of solar collectors per year.

Google's Goal: Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) today announced a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal. The newly created initiative, known as RE<C, will focus initially on advanced solar thermal power, wind power technologies, enhanced geothermal systems and other potential breakthrough technologies.

In 2008, Google expects to spend tens of millions on research and development and related investments in renewable energy. As part of its capital planning process, the company also anticipates investing hundreds of millions of dollars in breakthrough renewable energy projects which generate positive returns.

"There has been tremendous work already on renewable energy. Technologies have been developed that can mature into industries capable of providing electricity cheaper than coal. Solar thermal technology, for example, provides a very plausible path to providing renewable energy cheaper than coal. We are also very interested in further developing other technologies that have potential to be cost-competitive and green. We are aware of several promising technologies, and believe there are many more out there."

"With talented technologists, great partners and significant investments, we hope to rapidly push forward. Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal.  We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades."

-- Larry Page, Google Co-founder and President of Products

400 MW Solar Tower System for California

The California Energy Commission has accepted an application from Oakland solar startup BrightSource Energy Inc. to develop the 400-megawatt Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS), a solar thermal power plant -- the first large solar thermal facility proposed for California in 16 years.  The ISEGS is a project to develop three solar thermal power plants and shared facilities near Ivanpah Dry Lake in the Mojave Desert close to the California-Nevada border. 

The plants will utilize Distributed Power Tower™ (DPT) (sometimes called solar towers, earlier post) solar field technology developed by Jerusalem, Israel based Luz II, a wholly owned subsidiary of BrightSource Energy.

The ISEGS includes three solar concentrating thermal power plants, based on distributed power tower and heliostat mirror technology. DPT technology consists of a number of solar power clusters (SPC's), each including a power tower surrounded on 360º by an array of heliostats. DPT heliostats are organized into a solar field, which consists of thousands of heliostats sharing a common power tower. Heliostats are flat glass mirrors which track the sun and reflect sunlight onto a receiver. The receiver is located on the top of the power tower. Power towers are linked together by pipelines to a central location where electricity is generated and sent to a power grid. The total area required for all three phases would be 3,400-acres (or 5.3 square miles). Each SPC produces 20 MW using Bright Source Energy’s current DPT 550 technology.

FPL, PG&E and Ausra Commit to Develop 1,500 MW of Solar Power

Thursday, in association with leading utilities FPL Group, Inc.(NYSE: FPL) and PG&E Corp. (NYSE: PCG), Ausra, Inc., a solar thermal power technology company, presented a formal commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting for a clean energy future through the development of 1,500 megawatts of solar thermal power plants which they claim will produce electricity at a price comparable with conventional fossil-fuel power plants.

As part of this announcement, PG&E Corp. committed to purchasing an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal power over the next five years. Separately, FPL Group committed to develop 500 megawatts of solar thermal power plants. Collectively these commitments will generate about as much electric power as all the photovoltaic solar panels installed worldwide in 2006.

Solar thermal power plants generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, generating high-pressure steam which drives conventional turbine generators. Energy storage systems can store heat from the sun to allow solar electric power to be generated on demand, day and night.

One of the major differences between Ausra's system and other solar thermal power plants is that they use low cost flat mirrors rather than solar troughs. A previous post on Ausra gives further details about how their system differs from others resulting in a lower cost of electricity.

"FPL Group has evaluated Ausra’s new solar thermal technology, and we view this breakthrough technology as a promising option to make solar energy an economically sound addition to our power generation going forward.” said Lewis Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group, parent company of Florida Power & Light.

FPL Group is the nation’s leader in wind and solar energy today. 

PG&E Signs Agreement With Solel for 553 Megawatts of Solar Power

This thermal solar project when completed in 2011 it will be the largest solar project in the world, generating 553 megawatts of power for Pacific Gas & Electric in the Mojave Desert in California. The plant is being built by Israeli company, Solel Solar Systems of Beit Shemes, Israel, a successor company to the people that built the nine thermal solar plants in the Mojave Desert, that have operated over the past 20 years and are currently generating 354 MW of electricity. 

Thermal solar is currently the lowest cost technology for producing solar power and it is good to see a large project like this get the go ahead.

According to their website Solel is building an $800 million 150 MW project in Spain and has recently upgraded a 100 MW project in California for FPL Energy. They have been active in supplying smaller solar power plants and components for them, but this is the first megaproject that they have landed.

Their current technology is more than 20% more efficient than the original design due to improvements in the design of the solar trough and the receiver tube.

Neither Solel or P G & E have revealed any costs for the project but an AP article on PR Inside estimated that The Mojave Solar Park to cost $2 billion. A NYT article said that people close to both companies put the cost of electricity from the plant at slightly more than 10 cents a kilowatt-hour (The Solel website says "the cost of solar thermal produced energy can be close to 12 cents (US) per k/Wh. However, many economists and investors predict that this price will continuously drop over the next ten years with increased installed capacity, to 6 cents per kW/h, as a result of technological improvements, economies of scale and volume production.")

A few paragraphs from the P G & E press release further describe the project:

DOE Finally Begins Support of CSP

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar Energy Technologies Program has released a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for companies to develop storage solutions, manufacturing approaches, and new system concepts for large-scale concentrating solar power (CSP) plants. The collaborative public-private partnerships aims to reduce the nominal levelized cost of energy (LCOE) of CSP power plants from 13-17 ¢/kWh in 2007 to a target of 7-10¢/kWh by 2015 and 5-7¢/kWh by 2020. DOE estimates that satisfaction of these cost targets could lead to installation of 16,000 to 35,000 MW of new generating capacity by 2030. This would result in a savings of 36-80 million tons of CO2 emitted to the atmosphere each year relative to coal plants of similar capacity.

The FOA anticipates three phases of effort: concept feasibility, prototype development, and field validation with a “go/no-go” decision at the end of each phase. DOE is providing $5M toward the FOA in FY07 with an additional $5M planned for FY08. These funds will be sufficient to cover all of Phase 1, and will allow several successful projects to begin Phase 2 activities.

DOE has found that Nevada, New Mexico, California, Arizona, Utah and Texas have enough combined potential project sites to provide up to 6800 MW of generating capacity – roughly equivalent to seven times the country’s current electricity generating capacity. CSP technology is the least expensive solar technology for providing large quantities of electrical power, and with sufficient storage, it can deliver baseload power.