Solar power plants in the Mojave Desert
There are several solar power plants in the Mojave Desert which supply power to the
Overview
The
In 2008, solar electricity was not cost competitive with bulk, baseload power. However, it does provide electricity when and where power is most limited and most expensive, which is a strategic contribution. Solar electricity mitigates the risk of fuel-price volatility and improves grid reliability.[6] Since then costs have decreased to make solar electricity increasingly competitive.[7]: p.13
While many of the costs of fossil fuels are well known, others (pollution related health problems,
Solar thermal power plants can generally be built in a few years because solar plants are built almost entirely with modular, readily available materials. In contrast, many types of conventional power projects, especially coal and nuclear plants, require long lead times.[1]
Solar plants
Solar One and Solar Two
The unique feature of Solar Two was its use of molten salt to capture and store the sun's heat. The very hot salt was stored and used when needed to produce steam to drive a turbine/generator that produces electricity. The system operated smoothly through intermittent clouds and continued generating electricity long into the night.
Solar Energy Generating Systems
Trough systems predominate among today's commercial solar power plants. Nine separate trough power plants, called Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGS), were built in the 1980s in the Mojave Desert near Barstow by the Israeli company BrightSource Energy (formerly Luz Industries). These plants have a combined capacity of 354 MW. NextEra says that the solar plants power 232,500 homes (during the day, at peak power) and displace 3,800 tons of pollution per year that would have been produced if the electricity had been provided by fossil fuels, such as oil.[2][10]
Trough systems convert the heat from the sun into electricity. Because of their parabolic shape, trough collectors can focus the sun at 30-60 times its normal intensity on a receiver pipe located along the focal line of the trough. Synthetic oil circulates through the pipe and captures this heat, reaching temperatures of 390 °C (735 °F). The hot oil is pumped to a generating station and routed through a heat exchanger to produce steam. Finally, electricity is produced in a conventional steam turbine.[2] The SEGS plants operate on natural gas on cloudy days or after dark, and natural gas provides 25% of the total output.[2] Critics note that this reliance on gas-fired power for "backup" electricity has, over the 35-year history of the plants, generated over 3 million tons of CO2 emissions more than if the electricity had been generated by a nuclear plant.[11][12][13][14][15]
Desert Sunlight Solar Farm
The
Nevada Solar One
Nevada Solar One uses
The cost of Nevada Solar One is in the range of $220–250 million. The power produced is slightly more expensive than wind power, but was less than photovoltaic (PV) power.[19] As photovoltaics became less expensive, some proposed CSP projects have been converted to photovoltaics projects.[20]
Copper Mountain Solar Facility
The
Nellis Solar Power Plant
In December 2007, the U.S. Air Force announced the completion of the
Ivanpah Solar Power Facility
The 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, located 40 miles (64 km) southwest of Las Vegas, is the world's largest solar-thermal power plant project, which became fully operational on February 13, 2014.[27] BrightSource Energy received a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the United States Department of Energy to build the project, which deploys 347,000 heliostat mirrors focusing solar energy on boilers located on centralized solar power towers. In February 2012, Ivanpah was awarded the CSP (Concentrating Solar Power) Project of the Year by Solar Power Generation USA.[28]
Mojave Solar Project
The
The nominal 250 MW solar electric generating facility generates steam in solar steam generators, which will expand through a steam turbine generator to produce electrical power from twin, independently operable solar fields, each feeding a 125 MW power island. The plant should generate 617,000 MWh of power annually, enough power for more than 88,000 households and will prevent the emission of over 430 kilotons of CO2 a year.[32] Pacific Gas & Electric has agreed to a 25-year power purchase agreement.[33]
Antelope Valley Solar Ranch
The 230 MW Antelope Valley Solar Ranch is a First Solar photovoltaic project now owned by Exelon[34] in the Antelope Valley area of the Western Mojave Desert.[35] In September 2011, the project received a $646 million loan guarantee from the US Department of Energy, and its construction was estimated to generate 350 construction jobs and 20 permanent jobs.[35] It features an innovative utility-scale deployment of inverters with voltage regulation and monitoring technologies, which will "enable the project to provide more stable and continuous power".[35] Electricity from the Antelope Valley Solar Ranch project will be sold to Pacific Gas & Electric Company under a 25-year contract.[36][37]
Environmental impacts
Land use issues
A 2013 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded that the average large photovoltaic plant in the United States occupied 3.1 acres (1.3 ha) of permanently disturbed area and 3.4 acres (1.4 ha) of total site area per gigawatt-hour per year. The average concentrated solar power plant in the US occupied 2.7 acres (1.1 ha) of disturbed area and 3.5 acres (1.4 ha) of total area per GWh/yr,[38] A 2015 life-cycle analysis of land use for various sources of electricity concluded that concentrating solar power had a land-use footprint of 9.0 m2/MWhr for trough, and 14 m2/MWhr for power tower. The concentrating solar footprint was smaller than that of coal power (18 m2/MWhr), but larger than the other sources studied, including ground photovoltaic (7.9 m2/MWhr), natural gas (0.49 m2/MWhr), and wind power (0.26 m2/MWhr).[39]
The federal government has dedicated nearly 2,000 times more acreage to oil and gas leases than to solar development. In 2010 the Bureau of Land Management approved nine large-scale solar projects, with a total generating capacity of 3,682 megawatts, representing approximately 40,000 acres (16,000 ha). In contrast, in 2010, the Bureau of Land Management processed more than 5,200 applications gas and oil leases, and issued 1,308 leases, for a total of 3.2 million acres. Currently, 38.2 million acres of onshore public lands and an additional 36.9 million acres of offshore exploration in the Gulf of Mexico are under lease for oil and gas development, exploration and production.[40][unreliable source?]
Some of the land in the eastern Mojave Desert will be preserved, but the solar industry is mainly interested in areas of the western desert, "where the sun burns hotter and there is easier access to transmission lines", said Kenn J. Arnecke of
Water use issues
Concentrating solar plants in the Mojave Desert have brought up issues of water use, because concentrating solar power plants with wet-cooling systems have high water-consumption intensities compared to other types of electric power plants; only fossil-fuel plants with carbon capture and storage may have higher water intensities.[42] A 2013 study comparing various sources of electricity found that the median water consumption during operations of concentrating solar power plants with wet cooling was 810 gal/MWhr for power tower plants and 890 gal/MWhr for trough plants. This was higher than the operational water consumption (with cooling towers) for nuclear (720 gal/MWhr), coal (530 gal/MWhr), or natural gas (210 gal/MWhr).[43] A 2011 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory came to similar conclusions: for power plants with cooling towers, water consumption during operations was 865 gal/MWhr for CSP trough, 786 gal/MWhr for CSP tower, 687 gal/MWhr for coal, 672 gal/MWhr for nuclear, and 198 gal/MWhr for natural gas.[44] The Solar Energy Industries Association noted that the Nevada Solar One trough CSP plant consumes 850 gal/MWhr.[45]
In 2007, the US Congress directed the Department of Energy to report on ways to reduce water consumption by CSP. The subsequent report noted that dry cooling technology was available that, although more expensive to build and operate, could reduce water consumption by CSP by 91 to 95 percent, bringing their consumption below that of conventional power plants. A hybrid wet/dry cooling system could reduce water consumption by 32 to 58 percent.[46] A 2015 report by NREL noted that of the 24 operating CSP power plants in the US, 17 used wet-cooling systems. The four existing CSP plants with dry-cooled systems were the three power plants at the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility near Barstow, California, and the Genesis Solar Energy Project in Riverside County, California. Of 15 CSP projects under construction or development in the US as of March 2015, 6 planned to use wet systems (including one wet system using reclaimed wastewater), 7 planned for dry systems, 1 hybrid, and 1 unspecified.[42]
Wildlife
Some solar power plants with power tower designs in the Mojave Desert have come under scrutiny for bird mortality. In general, these facilities are fenced off to help keep terrestrial wildlife out. However, in the case of concentrated solar power plants such as the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, studies have concluded that a significant number of birds and bats are injured or killed either by colliding into the heliostat mirrors or from burning in solar flux created by the mirror field.[47][48] Also, roadrunners become trapped outside the installed perimeter fences, where they become easy prey for coyotes, who have killed and eaten dozens of them since the facilities have been constructed.[49]
Mitigation
Ecologically sensitive habitat in the vicinity of
See also
- List of solar thermal power stations
- Renewable energy commercialization
- Solar power in California
- List of photovoltaic power stations
- Renewable energy in the United States
- Renewable portfolio standard
References
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