Another Great Concept in Solar Energy on Display at Intersolar
Trying to learn about everything at Intersolar in the day-and-half I spent there is like trying to see everything at the Metropolitan Art Museum or the Louvre in that brief period of time: a really bad idea. The three enormous floors of San Francisco’s Moscone Center are packed with great concepts, presented by some extremely bright and passionate people, all trying to make their mark on a world that is starting to perceive the value of energizing human activities from the sun.
I knew the moment I met Mark Kingsley, President and CEO of Alion Energy, I could see that his company’s offering had the potential to change the world of utility scale solar PV. After our brief introductions, Mark asked me, “Craig, where, i.e., on what sort of land should solar be located? You have two choices: a) arable (farm) land, and b) dry, rocky, inhospitable non-arable land, including 1.5 million acres covering 45,000 locations that the EPA has designated as brownfields. He had made his point.
Alion boasts a unique approach and capability to installing–and cleaning–massive solar arrays. There are two conventional methodologies for ground-mounting PV: 4 – 6 foot-long ground screws, and pilings that are driven into the earth, both of which require intensive amounts of labor. Alion extrudes a heavy concrete “curb” (picture a normal city curb–see photo above), attached to which are the brackets that hold the panels. It’s all on the ground, rather than in the ground. Best of all, the robot that cleans the panels rides along the same strip of concrete; this may be the first concept in solar PV that contemplates both the installation and the cleaning in one solution.
I was so glad to have made the connection, and so impressed with such a solid concept.
He has not solved the biggest problem with solar power, i.e., its intermittent nature. THAT is where the major effort should go if solar is to become practical. But even with adequate storage, the rated power of solar systems would have to be about five times greater than that of continuous power sources to provide the same amount of continuous power.
True, he hasn’t made the sun at night. Yet, solar PV continues to grow like a weed, and most of it is utility scale. Apparently, grid operators find solar energy valuable. Maybe you should look into this a bit further.
Recently I was at a meeting at Power New Mexico (PNM). The actions of PNM are NOT based on what they find valuable. Rather, their actions are dictated by the state legislature. They are REQUIRED to instal a certain amount of renewable power and REQUIRED to pay for power from roof-top solar systems. It is not an option for them. I assume that the situation is the same in many parts of the country.
We need to get practically 100% of our power from non-CO2 emitting sources. Thus, our efforts should be directed accordingly.
What you say about non-CO2-emitting sources is correct. And if we get there, it will be with a mix of resources, solar among them. Trust me on this. 🙂
Every KW of an intermittent capacity must be backed up with a source of power that is able to deliver at any time. So how does solar make it possible to eliminate CO2 emissions?
Hydro power and geothermal power are available 100% of the time in the areas where they are possible, so unless their capacity is exceeded, they do not need backup power.
Frank, you state and ask “Every KW of an intermittent capacity must be backed up with a source of power that is able to deliver at any time. So how does solar make it possible to eliminate CO2 emissions?”
Surely, you must be aware that the grid is already built and managed to handle fluctuations across multiple generation sources. Solar contributes power to the grid during times of significant need, when people are using power at work, as well as power to cool their homes. Solar therefore reduces the needs for new and existing fossil generation by that extent.
You seem to be laboring under the impression that solar installations are pointless parallel additions to the grid that serve no purpose.
If there were no purpose to solar – if it did not serve to replace some fossil source, in some manner, at a more significant and sustainable ROI (and therefore reduce CO2) – investors would not flock in such numbers.
With only wind and solar, it is impossible to get reliable power. It simply cannot be done the reason being that they cannot provide reliable power. It’s not as though for every megawatt of solar or wind power a megawatt of a reliable power source can be permanently razed. Rather, it has to be kept running to enable it to ramp up output quickly to compensate for a loss of wind and solar power. As the percentage of renewables increases, that problem will become more and more apparent.
As long as wind and solar have to be backed up by a reliable source of power, why not just eliminate the wind and solar and have only CO2-free reliable power connected? And if there is adequate CO2-free reliable power connected, what purpose would wind and solar serve except to take money that should be used instead to expand nuclear power which is reliable? Why have parallel systems, which is exactly what is happening as will become even more obvious as wind and solar increase?
Of course there is a purpose to solar else investors would not flock in such numbers. And, the reason the investors flock in such large numbers is to take advantage of government subsidies and government-mandated high feed-in tariffs for solar power.
Wind and solar have a place in niche situations were connecting to the grid is not an option, such as in small Pacific island countries. They will either have to deal with unreliable power or use Diesel power when renewable power is not available. The cost of running small Diesel generators is so high that the renewables can be justified. Those countries are so small that they do not make a significant contribution to CO2 emissions. And, Diesel generators can quickly change output to compensate for the wild gyrations in wind and solar power.
The experience in Germany is revelatory. Germany has built more coal plants to compensate for taking nuclear plants out of operation thereby increasing CO2 emissions which they are supposed to be reducing. On average, if memory serves, Germany gets about 40% of its power from renewables on average, but sometimes renewables generate well over 100% of what Germany needs. That is in spite of the fact that Germany for years has committed itself to depending solely on renewables.
We are in a crisis situation; people will not realize how serious it is until it seriously disrupts their lives. And the fastest way to eliminate CO2 emissions is to expand nuclear power generation as fast as possible. In only 15 years, France went from zero nuclear to 80% nuclear power for electricity. Renewables could not be expanded that fast even if adequate storage were already connected to the grid. Considering that to provide adequate capacity on average, the peak amount of solar power has to be about five times the average power. That’s because the average output of a solar system is about 20%, i.e., 1/5, of its peak. With nuclear, allowing for about 10% down time for refueling etc., overbuilding by about 10% is sufficient.
Gentlemen,
Engineer-Poet, Frank, and Craig are all correct to a certain extent.
Solar energy technology is improving, and like all technology it works better in some locations and applications that any other method of power generation.
It’s also true that without government incentives and funding support, including distorting production economics, investment in Solar (and Wind) languishes.
But this is true only of large scale industrial power generation. Wind generation is a technology that’s already obsolescent. Like ethanol, Wind power only exists due to regulatory regimes and government sponsored life-lines.
Solar applications,( especially with rapidly improving technology) will still be useful generating power in suitable locations and specialist applications, for which mainstream power supply is either uneconomic or unsuitable.
Advanced nuclear energy ( my money’s on Thorium)is the obvious solution to generating ‘demand’ power on a industrial scale. Nuclear technology has the potential to generate zero-emission power on demand, in a compatible, economic and efficient manner.
Yes, it might be possible to fiddle around with a “mix” as Craig hopes, but in reality, who will bother in an era of economical, abundant zero emission free energy, from a far more convenient source ?
The main problem to resolving zero-emission power generation, is not some sinister conspiracy by the fossil-fuel industry, but all those people with an irrational fear and prejudice of the word
“Nuclear”.
There is no doubt that nuclear has the potential to make all other energy resources obsolete. The problem, though, is that “potential” and “actuality” are too different things.
Also, you’re incorrect about wind. The price of wind energy is dirt cheap, and the industry is growing like a weed.
Craig,
“wind power”, like solar, only ” grows like a weed” when fertilized by government incentives, subsidies and favorable regulatory requirements.
Nor is Wind power ” dirt cheap “. It’s only economic when the capital and replacement costs aren’t assessed because of regulatory policies. (that’s why investment stops when the subsidies are withdrawn).
Even if what you said was true, Wind still can’t compete with a power source that can supply vast amounts of surplus power “on demand”, without huge distribution losses and the need for expensive storage technology.
Judging the future of nuclear power generation by performance of nearly 70 year old Uranium-based technology, is like insisting that mass communication should be judged by the performance of the telegraph !
That’s the real problem for “wind” , even at it’s best, its performance has limited logistical output. Nuclear on the other hand, has almost unimaginable potential.
To address your question of the difference between “actual” and “potential”, the comparison isn’t really valid since with nuclear it’s not advanced technology that’s lacking, but the removal of political and regulatory opposition.
Meanwhile, massive lobbying efforts to gain tax credits or exemptions for activities make them suddenly very popular, where there was no investor push before. Even T. Boone Pickens said that the tax credits were the only reason to invest in wind… before he got out of the wind business.
Tax credits come to those with the most campaign contributions to give. Right now those tax credits go to sub-10-EROEI wind and solar rather than 85-plus-EROEI nuclear, because wind and solar are not threats to the oil and gas industry. Nuclear IS.
Solar is far too costly to buffer to be any great help in de-carbonizing energy in the industrial parts of the world. It’s scarce in the winter and utterly absent at night. Batteries even to carry over until morning are eye-poppingly expensive, not to mention short-lived.
If you had a few tools to use against carbon emissions and one of them was a source of electric generation that was emissions-free but hard to turn down, the SENSIBLE course would be to use it to cover everything from zero up to the minimum load and maybe somewhat higher, and use unreliables like solar to assist with other generators that do ramp up and down fast and toss their output away when it was too much. Maybe you’d insist that PV be paired with ice-storage air conditioners to soak up noon-peaking power for productive use later, but it would be playing only bit parts. Nuclear and hydro are the only things which can do the heavy lifting, and nuclear is the only one which scales.
I’ve spent 40 years thinking about this stuff, and I’ve come to the same conclusions as James Hansen and Michael Schellenberger. Trust ME on this: you’re on the wrong track.
Perhaps I could better explain the problem of combining renewables (wind and solar) with reliables (nuclear and fossil fuel).
Let us suppose that there are enough renewables to have a peak power of 150% of what is required and that they are connected to the grid. That means that the power provided by the renewables would vary from 0% of requirements to 150% of requirements.
On a sunny and windy day, the renewables would provide 150% of the power required. Meanwhile, the reliables would have to continue running, even though their power is not needed, so that their output could be ramped up as power from the renewables dropped off. That means that the total power output would significantly exceed 150% of requirements so power would have to be dumped, perhaps to a dummy load, or power from the renewables would have to be reduced. Next, as noon passed and the wind died down, renewable power would drop and the reliables, which had been running in wasteful spinning reserve mode, would have to ramp up their power.
There are problems with this. Load following, which is what the reliables would have to do, significantly shortens the life of the equipment because of the resulting temperature changes and the mechanical stresses caused by the temperature changes. That even shortens the life of transformers. Although that cannot be avoided 100%, having renewables connected greatly increases the effect. And, if the reliables are all nuclear, the renewables don’t even reduce CO2 emissions.
The problem could be mitigated to some degree by load management. For example, if renewable power dropped too quickly for the reliables to compensate (there is a limit to how fast their output can be ramped up), then sea water desalination plants could cut back and air conditioning could be temporarily suspended. But even so, the extreme variations in renewable power would be very challenging to accommodate. So, it looks as though the renewables would serve no useful purpose other than adding to investment, maintenance, and operational costs.
Even so, there are important niche situations where renewables are the power source of choice. In remote locations and in small Pacific island countries, connecting to a large grid is not practical. Renewables would be helpful in those situations. Small Diesel power is a maintenance headache and shipping the Diesel fuel to remote locations is expensive. So, renewables could be used to charge batteries which, of course, would greatly add to costs, but there are limited choices. Then, when the batteries ran low, they could switch to Diesel power. By thus limiting the use of Diesel power, the amount of fuel shipped would be greatly reduced and maintenance of the Diesel power systems would be reduced. Not an ideal situation, of course, but in remote locations people have to expect some additional costs and inconvenience.
Dude, most of this is simply incorrect. And no one is talking about building enough PV and wind to provide 150% of the power required. (??!!)
I don’t believe that “no one is talking about building enough PV and wind to provide 150% of the power required”. It is a matter of arithmetic. If no one is talking about 150%, perhaps it is because they realize that even 150% would be inadequate.
Because wind and solar power have a capacity factor typically less than 30%, even with unlimited storage capacity they have to be greatly overbuilt. Even a peak power exceeding 150% of requirements would be greatly insufficient. If the capacity factor were exactly 30%, then the amount of overbuild required would be 1.0 divided by 0.33333 which equals 3 and 1/3. Thus, with unlimited storage capacity having an efficiency of 100%, wind and solar would have to have a peak power 3 and one third times the amount of power required.
If I am wrong, surely you can show me how the arithmetic should be done.
Craig,
Like it or not, Frank has a valid point and the maths is on his side.
I agree Frank argues from a fairly academic and theoretical viewpoint, but that’s okay, we all do from time to time.
It takes practical experience to understand all the factors that make up political policy decisions.
Frank is absolutely correct at the value of solar generation for small island nations, but part of the fear is that the cost of shipping essential fossil fuels, (Aviation fuel, gasoline and diesel) may increase if consumption drops below a certain level.
Considerations like that, are just one instance among many of the hidden problems encountered when trying to change the energy economics of any society.
As a business advisor, you must be able to see that any industry (no matter how cool) that has a future competitor with vastly superior technology, isn’t a good long term bet.
Here’s the problem. Lets say hypothetically, we have a medium sized city, (about 2 million pop.), that can pass its own sovereign regulation. The brief is to supply energy hungry institutions and industry requiring 24 hour, seven day a week “power on demand” to an existing grid.
Now let’s also imagine that we have the opportunity of starting from scratch to supply the generating capacity. Let’s also agree the main criteria is the power source must be zero emission.
We could build a large wind farm, (if the location has sufficient wing). We also need a lot of transmission infrastructure. The problem is Wind generation must also require fossil fuel base load power. (We’ve no hydro or Geo-thermal available).
Problems with population growth, lack of space, natural disasters, dead birds etc would always be a concern.
Alternatively, We can invest in a number of miniature sized advanced Thorium reactors needing very little transmission infrastructure as the plants can be built underground, and unobtrusively, exactly where demand is located.
Advanced nuclear technology needs no “back up base load” capacity and with correct management produces very little waste.
Advanced nuclear technology will produce very economic, easily scaled zero emission power for the 100 years or so, at a relatively low capital cost. Cheap energy allows for greater economic activity, creating growth and prosperity.
Let’s make you the Mayor, what would you recommend to your taxpayers ? Abundant cheap competitive energy, requiring no taxpayer or power user subsidies, or the Wind industry that only survives on heavy subsidies from power users and taxpayers ?
The Point is that we have been using power when we want as it is a constant source of turn on and off whenever we need it…the point is that we must change…our sources of power are going to change and we must change how we do things to accommodate this. This is an opportunity to change and improve. The alternative albeit cheaper is to suffocate and burn up. We will run out of a breathable atmosphere long before it gets to hot for us here. Oceans are now dying at a rate that will crush you and your kids in your lifetime…Change means change all around, adjust how you do everything, don’t try to keep doing it the same way by plugging in new technologies and then complaining about how they don’t fit as well or aren’t quite as good… we are in a race to save the only “intelligent” life that now exists
in the universe…Act accordingly….
@ Paul,
Whoa there buddy ! What makes you so sure we’re the only intelligent life in the Universe ? Y’know the Universe is a pretty big place.
Nor is the human race going to downsize or limit our consumption of power, just to satisfy a few overfed, ideologically driven, misinformed, spoiled people living in wealthy first world counties think it’s a cool attitude to adopt.
Power generation is only thing that transforms poverty trap societies into prosperity.
Gloating about an apocalyptic future is just an exciting cop out, to excuse you from doing anything useful or practical to improve the environment.
Paul,
It would be politically impossible to follow your suggestion of changing the way we live to accommodate the unreliable nature of wind and solar power. Knowing that something better was available, i.e., nuclear power, people would rebel and there would be demonstrations in the streets, perhaps even violent demonstrations and. But how about spending some time thinking about it and proposing a way of living that would be possible with unreliable power?
You could begin by making a hypothetical schedule showing when power would be available and how much. It would require some research to do that and perhaps a computer program which would include a random number generator to produce such a power availability schedule. It could include a Monte Carlo simulation. The next step would be to use the schedule as a day planner and figure out how you would live considering how much power happened to be available from moment to moment, how it would be rationed, and what authority would do the rationing. It will also be necessary to determine how businesses, including manufacturing, retail stores, restaurants, etc., would operate with unpredictable power.
You may say that it is MY responsibility to carry out the above exercise. I say NO, it is YOUR responsibility since YOU were the one who asserted that we should learn to live with the available renewable power while I asserted that we should build a power system, using nuclear power, which would make abundant power available at all times.
Someone just referred me to a link which includes calculations of the amount of energy storage that would be needed to make renewables practical. In all such calculations there are assumptions about which opinions differ, but it does show the enormous amount of storage that would be required. Some of the comments are good too. Here is the link:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
Hi Frank,
Excellent riposte !