Solar Millennium, NV Energy Plan 250MW Solar-Thermal Plant in Nevada

By Ucilia Wang

Solar Millennium (SMLNF.PK) and NV Energy (NVE) plan to develop a 250-megawatt solar thermal power plant in Nevada.

Solar Millennium, which has been developing solar-thermal power plants in Spain, said Tuesday it has signed a memorandum of understanding with NV Energy, a utility that serves roughly 2.4 million people in Nevada. The plan is to build the solar-thermal power plant in Nye County by 2014.

The project would be done by the U.S. subsidiaries of Solar Millennium, a technology provider in Germany, and MAN Ferrostaal, an engineering and construction firm also in Germany. The companies, along with NV Energy, hope to start construction in 2010, pending approval from the Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission.

They are still figuring out how to pay for the project. NV Energy could invest money in the project or sign a power-purchase agreement instead, said Britta Carlson, an NV Energy spokeswoman.

A number of European companies with experiences in building solar-thermal power plants are developing projects in the United States, particularly in the Southwest. Solar-thermal power plants use the sun’s heat to generate steam for running an electricity generator, and proponents say solar-thermal technologies can deliver cheaper solar power than power plants built with photovoltaic panels.

Spain has been a popular place for building solar thermal power plants. Solar Millennium has built them there, along with its Spanish competitors Torresol Energy, Abengoa Solar and Acciona Energia.

Acciona completed a 64-megawatt solar-thermal plant in Nevada two years ago called Nevada Solar One, which the company touted it as the largest solar-thermal plant to be built in 17 years and the third largest in the world. Acciona sold the electricity from the $266 million plant to Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power, both of which began operating as NV Energy in 2008.

Solar Millennium’s project in Nevada calls for studying the feasibility of adding an energy storage component to the power plant. Energy storage makes an attractive addition to a solar energy power plant, which can only produce electricity during daylight. Using batteries is too expensive, and renewable power companies are exploring other ways to generate electricity after the sun goes down or to store the excess electricity produced at night (such as wind power) for use during the day.

A solar-thermal storage tank would contain superheated materials, such as molten salts, that can be released to generate steam whenever electricity is needed.

Comments

[john s. gordon:]

energy storage - electrolyze water using a portion of the kW output during the day, store the H2, use it to operate a fuel cell @ night.
> jack

Mar 05 09:22 AM

[Trane250:]

I suppose that NV Energy is giving up on the Ely Energy Center, a large coal-fired generation plant to be built north of Ely. Too bad.

investors.nvenergy.com...=

Mar 05 10:44 AM

[jack kreg:]

Trane250, with the collapse of construction projects to build new coal fired power plants, how long do you think it will take for the USA to have a electricity production crisis?
I have absolutely no confidence that solar or wind will fill the void.
Natural gas could, but what about the carbon capture.
I guess that we will turn the old coal plants back on when the lights go out in Washington.
I look forward to your opinion, thanks Trane250.

Mar 05 12:05 PM

[Trane250:]

Susan Sarandon led a demonstration in Washington, DC the beginning of the week to protest against congresses heating plant. Yup, congress heats itself up with coal and not even anthracite but dirty bituminous. Trouble is the demonstrators encountered bitter cold and snow and in March no less. She was probably thinking of the lyrics from "Wouldn't it be Wonderful" as she was protesting: "lots of coal for makin' lots of eat."

www.thenewamerican.com...

Mar 05 05:19 PM

[Will Deliver:]

Nevada has no shortage of available alternative energy options. There are a half dozen producing Geothermal electrical power plants and at least a dozen geothermal plants under developement in NV. There is available wind power and the amount of available Solar days is staggering! There are also a couple of High Power electrical transmission/distribut... lines under construction right now.
These a job creation businesses. They reduce our dependence on Foreign oil. Once these alternative energy sources come on line, the electricity will be very low cost to the consumer, because the source of the energy is free! We are only paying off the initial capital investment and continuing operations.

Mar 06 03:19 PM

[Trane250:]

Most of Nevada's electrical power will be generated with natural gas imported from Indonesia, Qatar, Russia and other less than friendly places.

Mar 07 05:42 PM

[frflyer:]

jack kreg
"I have absolutely no confidence that solar or wind will fill the void."

Why not? Wind energy increased by 8.3 GW in the U.S. last year. It increased by over 6 GW in China last year. That rate should increase in the coming years. Using a capacity factor of 30% for wind, we arrive at 2.49, or the equivalent of two and a half nuclear plants of 1 GW each, or 4-5 coal plants of 630 MW each, which are both U.S. average sizes.

What do you think the chances are, of building two or three nuclear plants in one year?

Yesterday, China announced the intent to have 100 GW of wind energy by 2020.

Denmark has 20% wind energy.
Spain has 12% and lots of solar.

The potential for solar thermal just in California's deserts is 661 GW according the the NREL research. And that is only considering land with no more than 1% slope, and avoiding environmentally sensitive areas. Up to 3% slope is considered ok.
California's total generating capacity is presently 58 GW, from all sources of energy.

Add in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Colorado and West Texas, all with big solar thermal potential.

The electricity prices from solar thermal (CSP) are now 12-17 cents/kWh, and are expected to fall below 10 cents/kWh in 4-5 years, then fall to 4-8 cents/kWh when the industry is up to scale, probably by 2020.

By 2020, hundreds of gigawatts of solar and wind energy could already be built. Not so far fetched as you might think. If we built 8.3 GW of wind every year for the next ten years, like we did last year, that's already 100 GW of wind.
So that may be a conservative estimate, since the growth should increase.

Photovoltaics on a large scale, both utility scale and rooftops and such. Prices are falling rapidly and are already competitive in more expensive markets in the U.S.

Nanosolar is marketing to small towns across the country. The idea is that you use 10 acres on the outskirts of town and power 1,000 homes; 20 acres - 2,000 homes, ......



Solar thermal commercialization is not as far along as wind, but there are already well over 3 GW of CSP projects underway in the U.S. The price is expected to fall below 10 cents/kWh when about 4 GW are installed according to a study by the Western Governors Association. The NREL thinks cost of building will fall rapidly as experience is gained and some economy of scale is reached. They expected the first few plants to be expensive.

There are 9 pilot plants in the Mojave desert that have been running about 20 years. Together they produce 355 MW peak. They are hybrids, co-firing natural gas at night. These do not have heat storage. They did for some years, but the storage was removed because it didn't mesh with some new design changes they wanted to try. The NREL that is. Commercial plants tend to be much bigger than those pilot plants. More like 355 MW each, or bigger.
Co-firing with gas is a useful configuration in some cases.
The cost of adding heat storage are offset by the higher price for the dispatchable power, according the NREL study.

By 2020, you might see the first new nuclear plants coming online with 1 -2 GW each, after 10 years or more of planning and building.
And the electricity prices from new nuclear will be 12-17 cents/kWh minimum.

There are huge bottlenecks in the supply of components for nuclear power plants.

The price of building nuclear plants has skyrocketed.

The above numbers and time frame are about right for carbon capture for coal also (which isn't even proven tech). They will both be more expensive than wind or solar.
And neither will create as many jobs as wind and solar. The NREL says that new gas plants can't compare with solar thermal when it comes to benefits to California's economy. $1.40 return for every $1.00 invested verses a return of $0.90 to $1.00 for gas plants.

By then PV will be cheap too.

Large solar thermal plants can be built in 3 years from planning to online.

It's dispatchable power, when combined with heat storage, is actually more valuable than the base load power from coal and nuclear. It will better facilitate integrating and balancing the new grid.
See here:
www.altenergystocks.co...

climateprogress.org/20.../

Solar thermal can be air or water cooled. Water cooled plants can be combined hot water and electricity producing or CHP. They can also be combined power and desalinization, or stand alone desalinization. They can be for heat only, like for industrial or agricultural processing.

It's no accident that there are big plans for solar thermal.

www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp...
"CSP Around The World"
Worldwide CSP solar potential.

www.desertec.org/

Trans Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) great article on solar thermal and plans to power Europe and the Middle East and North Africa to use solar thermal in the deserts for electricity, combined heat and power, and water desalinization.

www.solarserver.de/sol...



Concentrated Photovoltaic solar (CPV) also has potential for both distributed and utility scale energy.

New twist on CPV
An Israeli company named Zenith Solar is about to build their first solar farm that produces hot water and electricity from a CPV system.
The solar cells in CPV systems have to be cooled so they aren't damaged by heat. Zenith captures the heat from the cooling water. The sunlight is intensified 1000 fold in CPV and CSP systems.

Apr 22 02:19 AM