Under the 25-year deal with developer 8minute Solar Energy, the city would buy electricity from a sprawling complex of solar panels and lithium-ion batteries in the Mojave Desert of eastern Kern County, about two hours north of Los Angeles. The Eland project would meet 6% to 7% of L.A.’s annual electricity needs and would be capable of pumping clean energy into the grid for four hours each night.
Source: Los Angeles OKs a deal for record-cheap solar power and battery storage – Los Angeles Times
Above a certain temperature, it becomes possible to replace the steam with supercritical carbon dioxide. This works more efficiently, potentially providing a boost of more than 20 percent, but it requires temperatures in excess of 1,000K. That makes things a bit more challenging, given that many metals will melt at such temperatures; others will react with carbon dioxide under these conditions. Finding a material that could work involves balancing a lot of factors, including heat and chemical resistance, ea
Source: New material could up efficiency of concentrated solar power | Ars Technica
There’s booming demand for one of the product categories Tesla makes that gets far less focus than its cars. Residential-energy storage has been surging in the U.S., with more capacity installed in the second quarter than in all of last year. Tesla sells its Powerwall to homeowners.
Source: For Now, at Least, the World Isn’t Making Enough Batteries – Bloomberg
This year, the race regulations are a clear sign of how rapidly solar technology is changing. Teams have to use a smaller solar collector than before: cars in the Challenger class can have no more than 43 square feet of solar cells versus nearly 65 square feet for the previous race, in 2015. That’s half the area allowed on cars from the original 1987 race. In other words, technology is advanced enough now (both in solar cells and the underlying vehicle designs) that you don’t need a sea of panels to keep a car running.
Source: Solar car race kicks off 30th anniversary with a fresh challenge
Globally, the price of solar panels has fallen 50% between 2016 and 2017, they write. And in countries with favorable wind conditions, the costs associated with wind power “can be as low as one-half to one-third that of coal- or natural gas-fired power plants.” Innovations in wind-turbine design are allowing for ever-longer wind blades; that boost in efficiency will also increase power output from the wind sector, according to Morgan Stanley.
Editorial Note: This is the first time I had to deal with something like this. Linking to a site is not against the law nor can anyone demand it be removed. Here are two emails supposedly from www.digitaltrends.com. The email lists three urls from bucktownbell.com, this site, but none of them reference the link he complained about. Thus, this could be a bot email and Rob Wolfe at dtlinkoutreach@gmail.com could be spam or some kind of spear phishing attack on me.
So I took the post that linked to https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/china-floating-solar-power-plant/ down. No big deal. After the emails are links to other sites about China’s new solar power plant. I found the story interesting. This site is about articles I find interesting.
Now bugger off Rob Wolfe whoever you are!
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2018 18:55:53 +0000 From: Rob Wolfe <dtlinkoutreach@gmail.com> To: Mark Anderson <mea@brandylion.com> Subject: quick question Parts/Attachments: 1 OK 25 lines Text 2 Shown 26 lines Text ---------------------------------------- Just a quick question Mark - did you get my last e-mail? I really need you to remove the link on http://bucktownbell.com/ http://bucktownbell.com/?%C2%A0 http://bucktownbell.com/?%C2%A0&paged=2 http://bucktownbell.com/?author http://bucktownbell.com/?author=2 going to my site at https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/china-floating-solar-power-plant/ Can you please remove it ASAP? If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know --- Rob Wolfe ------------- latest email -----------------
Date: Fri, 26 Jan 2018 18:26:58 +0000 From: rob Wolfe <dtlinkoutreach2@gmail.com> To: Mark Anderson <mea@brandylion.com> Subject: Mark please respond Parts/Attachments: 1 OK 29 lines Text 2 Shown 33 lines Text ---------------------------------------- Hey Mark I really really need you to act on this. You are linking to my site at https://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/china-floating-solar-power-plant/ from here http://bucktownbell.com/ http://bucktownbell.com/?%C2%A0 http://bucktownbell.com/?%C2%A0&paged=2 http://bucktownbell.com/?author http://bucktownbell.com/?author=2 I am very sure that this link is hurting my site in Google! This means, retaining that link would hurt the reputation of your site as well, if we need to include it in our link disavow request to Google. So please remove that link ASAP and I'll make sure to not bother you again! Thanks in advance! --- Rob Wolfe
So why build solar plants on top of lakes and reservoirs? Fiona Harvey at The Guardian explains that building on bodies of water, especially manmade lakes that are not ecologically sensitive, helps protect agricultural land and terrestrial ecosystems from being developed for energy use. The water also cools the electronics in the solar panels, helping them to work more efficiently, reports Alistair Boyle for The Telegraph. For similar reasons Britain built a 23,000-panel floating solar farm on the Queen Elizabeth II reservoir near Heathrow airport in 2016 to help power the Thames Water treatment plant.
When I wrote about China and India being years ahead of their climate pledges, some commenters expressed skepticism. But whatever your views on how well we can trust official government statistics, one thing is pretty much undeniable at this point:
This is the first big project from Tesla and SolarCity since the acquisition. Both companies believe this station is the biggest combination solar panel and storage facility in the world. With approximately 55,000 solar cells spread over about 45 acres, it’ll be tough to find anything larger.
Source: Tesla’s new solar energy station will power Hawaii at night
CSP uses either lenses or parabolic mirrors to concentrate the sun’s light onto a small point where water or another substance is heated.
The heat is used to create steam, which runs a turbine that produces electricity. In the Noor CSP, concave mirrors focus on molten salt, heating it anywhere from 300 degrees to 660 degrees Fahrenheit.
Source: World’s largest solar plant goes live, will provide power for 1.1M people
Currently, the Noor CSP can generate 160 megawatts (MW). But as additional phases are completed, in two years it’s expected to generate more than 500MW — enough power to meet the needs of 1.1 million Moroccans.
Solar power projects intended to turn solar heat into steam to generate electricity have struggled to compete amid tumbling prices for solar energy from solid-state photovoltaic (PV) panels. But the first commercial-scale implementation of an innovative solar thermal design could turn the tide. Engineered from the ground up to store some of its solar energy, the 110-megawatt plant is nearing completion in the Crescent Dunes near Tonopah, Nev. It aims to simultaneously produce the cheapest solar thermal power and to dispatch that power for up to 10 hours after the setting sun has idled photovoltaics.
Source: A Tower of Molten Salt Will Deliver Solar Power After Sunset – IEEE Spectrum
At the utility scale, it may actually be even more disruptive. Tesla appears to be selling the utility scale models at < $250 / kwh. Multiple utility studies suggest that such a price should replace natural gas peakers and drive gigantic grid-level deployments.
Source: Tesla Battery Economics: On the Path to Disruption | Ramez Naam
Tentative Conclusion: The battery is right on the verge of being cost effective to buy across most of the US for day/night arbitrage. And it’s even more valuable if outages come at a high economic cost.