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Lux Research: Concentrating Solar Power deserves gigawatt focus in 2011
Tech research group Lux Research is warming to concentrating solar power technologies and says the CSP business should be good for 2011 as plants scale up to gigawatt proportions.
A new report from Lux compares four contending large-scale solar-powered generation systems: three CSP approaches and photovoltaic generation. The three CSP technologies covered in the report, ”Solar Thermal Update: The Renaissance of Concentrating Solar Power,” are parabolic trough, power tower and Stirling thermal systems. The three, plus a photovoltaic mode, are compared and modeled using a hypothetical 100 MW plant.
Lux’s strength is always on real-world business factors, and this report produces some interesting findings by dwelling on “levelized cost of electricity“, capital costs and internal rate of return.
Ted Sullivan, lead author of the report, says in a news release that things haven’t always been shining for CSP. ”After a few fits and starts, solar thermal projects have begun to make a big impact on the generation mix in both Spain and the Southwest U.S. Though trough technologies have been dominant to date, we expect power tower solutions to gain increasing prominence as the technology is proven, because their integration with thermal storage technologies smashes through the fundamental constraint that has held solar back to date: intermittency,” says Sullivan, senior analyst at the company.
Here’s how the four technologies shook out:
Capital Expenditures
- Winner: Stirling dish systems (because of modularity and relatively cheap Stirling engines).
- Runners up: Photovoltaic and CSP tower systems.
- At the bottom: Parabolic troughs (because of mirror field costs).
Performance
- Winners: Trough and tower systems (Parabolic troughs have best peak efficiency but tower systems have better system yields and capacity factors).
- At the bottom: Stirling dish and photovoltaic systems (lower capacity factors and lower energy yield, in kilowatt-hours output per kilowatt of peak power).
Levelized Cost Of Electricity (measured as $/kWh)
- Winner: Stirling dish systems (because their low cost and “decent” performances provide better internal rate of return to investors.
- Runner up: Power-tower technology.
- At the bottom: Trough and PV systems (of CSP systems, troughs have the most expensive capital expenditures, plus high operation and maintenance costs; PV have relatively high capex and “mediocre” performance).
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Glass optics enhance concentrating solar performance
An all-glass optical lens may be the key component to achieving higher efficiency and higher energy production concentrating solar power systems.
Silicon Valley-based Solergy, who recently announced plans to install a 100kW all-glass optical lens CSP system in Sicily, Italy, believes glass is the only way to guarantee the durability, reliability and performance of concentrating optics over time.
“One of our initial and fundamental design principles from day one was that if this technology is ever to work reliably, we must have optics in glass. Otherwise it will not be a viable solution over the long term,” Solergy’s CEO and co-founder Yoav Banin said in an interview with Optics.org.
Solar lenses currently used are predominantly acrylic and silicone-on-glass materials. These materials are often prone to hazing, yellowing and cracking.
Solergy also claims that glass lenses are no more expensive that its polymer counterparts. “We have achieved an all-glass, large dimension, highly precise lens, that is fabricated via a proprietary low cost process,” said the company.
The company also boasts 32.9 percent efficiency, and an independent efficiency survey conducted by the National Renewable Energy Lab ranked Solergy’s glass lens efficiency at 29 percent. The lens is designed to optimize optical efficiency and deliver uniform radiation distribution.
Solergy’s CSP system was on display at the EnerSolar exhibition in Milan, Italy earlier this month.
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Lux predicts winners, losers among CIGS and concentrated solar photovoltaics, and peak-energy demand solutions
SMA solar energy inverter
Lux Research has a couple of interesting reports out regarding who the winners and losers are likely to be in several key energy-related categories.
Lux, it should be pointed out, is in the business of providing governments, businesses and investors with proprietary information on emerging technologies. The company uses a combination of data-driven models and interviewing techniques to develop a “grid” scorecard on relative competitiveness. (Lux’s Evgenia Pekarskaya also provided one of the top-rated presentations at the recent Ceramic Leadership Summit.)
In a recent study titled, “Sorting Solar Module and Inverter Manufacturers on the Lux Innovation Grid,” judges the competitiveness of copper indium gallium diselenide and concentrated photovoltaics companies, energy-inverter makers.
In brief, Lux says that among CIGS players, Q-Cells subsidiary Solibro and start-up Miasolé have moved into the what the researchers call the “dominant” quadrant.
In the CPV category, Lux says Amonix has broken away from its competitors followed by Concentrix and Solaria, while the rest of the CPV field struggles.
In the inverter field, Lux says once sure-thing leaders SMA and Siemens are being surpassed by innovative companies like Advanced Energy and Satcon. Lux says the latter two could easily move into the “dominant” quadrant depending on how the companies manage and execute expansion. Other companies that Lux says are in strong positions are Amonix, Enphase and Abound Solar, the Lux predicts that each of these will launch IPOs in the coming year, with Enphase being something of a favorite at this point because of its high sales volumes.
“As the solar industry braces for a renewed shakeout, identifying which module- and inverter-makers have the greatest value is more important than ever,” said Jason Eckstein, a research associate at Lux Research and the report’s lead author.
Regarding energy demand solutions, in a report report, titled “Who wins the peak? The battle of solar, storage and smart grid to fill peak demand,” Lux shifts its approach and focuses its predictions on certain technologies rather than companies. In particular, Lux drilled into solar, demand response, thermal storage and compressed-air energy storage approaches. These four technologies, the company believes, can address the top third of the peak demand curve, thereby minimizing the use and construction of new supplemental gas-fired turbine systems.
Lux argues that based on cost and capital investment, demand response — where electricity customers reduce their consumption at critical times or in response to market prices — is best positioned to displace natural gas during extreme peak periods. But, the authors of the report warn that practical supply limits it to a 1% capacity factor, i.e., demand response cannot address the entire peak alone.
Lux also says that distributed solar power can out compete natural gas, primarily because of the subsidies these systems currently receive. These systems, predicts Lux, can handle about 23-30% of peak energy demand.
Although a number of stories have appeared in this blog and elsewhere about energy-storage solutions, Lux says that this technology is relative immature and this immaturity cripples its adoption. A Lux news release notes that, “[T]he technology’s immaturity makes it a non-starter today on cost and bankability, meaning that natural gas will continue to win the peak for years to come.”
“As the cost of energy storage declines, it will help make wind, solar and other intermittent renewables more viable sources of cheap dispatchable power during peak periods,” says Ted Sullivan, a Lux senior analyst the report’s lead author. “In order to supplant expensive natural gas peaker plants, policymakers need to better align subsidies for wind and solar with their actual cost to utilities. Although subsidies help make solar plants more economically viable, there is little incentive for utilities to install and operate them. Once installed, solar plants help satisfy peak demand, but increase system-level costs to utilities - such as the need to maintain dispatchable natural gas peaker plants in addition to solar capacity.”
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Giant solar farms in the works in China, India and U.S.
BrightSource solar array
First Solar announced yesterday that it and the Chinese government had agreed upon a memorandum of understanding that, if a few more bridges are crossed, will result in a 2 gigawatt solar power plant in Ordos City, Inner Mongolia, China.
That’s a huge plant. A story in today’s Wall Street Journal reports that it will be a 25-square-miles array.
This will be a 10-year, multiphase project beginning with a 30 megawatt demonstration project that is planned to get underway in June 2010. According to the company’s news release, phases 2, 3 and 4 will be 100 megawatts, 870 megawatts and 1,000 megawatts, respectively. Phases 2 and 3 will be completed in 2014 and phase 4 will be completed by 2019.
“This major commitment to solar power is a direct result of the progressive energy policies being adopted in China to create a sustainable, long-term market for solar and a low carbon future for China,” says First Solar CEO Mike Ahearn.
After building the plant, First Solar plans to sell it to yet-to-be-determined Chinese business. The value of such a power producer depends on the value of the hardware and, more importantly, the value of future revenue streams.
The latter, however, is uncertain at this time. China is expected to eventually enact a feed-in-tariff. Typically, feed-in-tariffs establish a guaranteed premium that will be paid for renewable energy, but the size of the tariff is currently under debate. Once it is set, it will provide a way of calculating the value of the electricity produced by the power plant over a long-term period.
“The Chinese feed-in tariff will be critical to this project,” Ahearn said yesterday. “This type of forward-looking government policy is necessary to create a strong solar market and facilitate the construction of a project of this size, which in turn continues to drive the cost of solar electricity closer to ‘grid parity’ – where it is competitive with traditional energy sources.”
The project still has a few more bureaucratic hurdles to cross, but according to the WSJ, it will be just one part of an enormous (12 gigawatt) renewable energy development zone in that area of Mongolia. The plan is to include wind, solar, biomass and hydroelectric energy sources.
Information, although sketchier, on two other mega solar projects has also just surfaced. The Clinton Climate Initiative has apparently just reached an agreement on an MOU to build a 3 gigawatt solar farm in the State of Gujarat in India:
Officials said the solar park will be developed on the non-cultivable wastelands available in Banaskantha and Kutch districts.
In an official press release, the government said that at present, about 34 internationally acclaimed companies are participating with the state government to develop solar projects in Gujarat.
The WSJ reports that CCI is also in talks for a second similarly size facility in Rajasthan.
Finally, a number of sources have just reported that Brightsource has signed contracts to supply more than 2,600 megawatts of solar electricity to Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. BrightSource is expected to set up as many as 14 concentrating solar power plants to deliver on this energy goal. Construction is expected to get underway in 2010. More on Brightsource’s California goals can be read in this recent CTT post.
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Getting to concentrating solar thermal power’s potential
Credit: National Renewable Energy Lab
A new report released by the World Resources Institute claims that an enormous solar energy resource remains largely untapped in the Southwest U.S. That’s hardly news. But interestingly enough, the WRI offers Congress ways to tap into this abundant resource.
It should be noted that WRI’s report focuses, without explanation, solely on one form of concentrating solar power: concentrating solar thermal. It’s unclear if WRI believes CST to be superior to other forms of CSP. Most of the institute’s recommendations and commentary could apply to CSP approaches, but, for the record, they refer only to CST. Here is WRI’s honey-do list for Congress:
- Enact a price on carbon. CST currently is more expensive than coal and other fossil fuel sources. Because CST is a low-carbon technology, enacting a carbon price would help the technology compete with conventional sources. Cap-and-trade is one mechanism for developing a carbon price.
- Fund RD&D. Research, development and demonstration support will facilitate cost reductions of materials and systems, including thermal energy storage, which can bring down costs to make CST competitive with conventional sources of baseload power.
- Create a national Renewable Energy Standard. Currently, some states with RES have a solar “carve out,” or a percentage set aside that must come specifically from solar. These policies have accelerated deployment of CST in those states and increased utility confidence in the technology. A national RES, including a mandate for solar, would send a market signal to invest in renewables such as CST.
- Push for CST in international technology partnerships. China, India and countries in the Middle East and North Africa have great potential for CST. As a promising option to reduce green house gas emissions and improve energy security, CST should be a priority in international collaboration on RD&D issues. For instance, the World Bank’s Clean Technology Fund includes a program dedicated to deploying concentrating solar thermal power.
- Improve the grid and transmission system. Greater federal oversight of the electricity grid and/or improved coordination between grid operators will help bring CST power from the country’s prime CST areas, the Southwest to a broader area.
- Consider alternative investment incentives. While tax credits are important, they are subject to periodic and uncertain renewal, which presents a challenge to investors. Moreover, in the current economy, tax-based incentives may not be as accessible to project developers as they have been in the past. Incentives such as feed-in tariffs, widely used in Europe, require utilities to pay renewable energy generators a fixed, above-wholesale price for the power they produce. Thus, feed-in tariffs directly raise the price paid for renewable generation and guarantees it a buyer over a period of time – a more stable signal to investors.
Sounds easy enough. Get on it, Congress.
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