Solar Thermal vs. PV: Which Tech Will Utilities Favor?

The old Thermal vs PV argument has been going for sometime. My answer is both will succeed. It’s very obvious that the ultimate winners will the the ones that can produce the most power for the best price right? One would think that is the rule that is stead fast the most important. While it is important there is one more that is perhaps even more important, “Fast Implementation” In a large family of hungry children, he who gets to the table first, usually gets the best piece of meat. Our table is so big with billions of energy consumers world wide that are hungry for Cheap, Reliable, Clean Energy, we all have a chance to survivie. Look at the computer industry, there are the Dell’s, Apple’s, and Toshiba’s, IBM’s and the myriad of others who are much smaller, but all surviving, and some quite well.
Solar will be the same way. The Question is who will be the Biggest Winners. There are 5 simple rules that will insure your company can be on the top.
1. Have the “Best Game Changing Disruptive Technology”
2. Quickly acquire the funding and backing needed to develop it.
3. Strive for Immediate Implementation into the Marketplace.
4. Pick your affiliates well, fly with Eagles, Stay away from the Pigeons. A good associate will help both of you to achieve success.
5. Have the Right Goals, it’s not just about the Dollars. If we don’t all succeed in halting Global Warming/Climate Change, it won’t matter who’s on top. Once Grid Parity is achieved, which will be very shortly, and the technology to achieve it is widely disseminated into the market place, Many well run Solar Companies will thrive and prosper to usher the world into “The New Age of Unlimited, Affordable and Renewable Energy”  The future of our planet depends on it.  All the best Michael

Severin Borenstein’s calulations for PV costs are ridiculous; he is either incompetent or a puppet for some other interest.  Severin’s cost basis for PV is detailed in a 2007 report found at www dot ucei dot berkeley dot edu/PDF/csemwp172 dot pdf. 

Severin’s biggest cost calculation errors include installed costs that are about 2x that of available PV systems, and the failure to calculate benefits of distributed PV installed at the user source rather than miles of power lines away as is the case with solar thermal. 

One last point to consider: Brightsource’s cost claims are idle prattling; they can’t provide any real costs until they build their first commercial size plant—which they have not done thus far; PV costs on the other hand can be demonstrated based on hundreds of actual installations. 

RE: “In comparison, electricity from coal-fired power plants costs about 5 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour”, et all issues at this blog.

WRONG.
Coal-fired, as of 7/2010 will be at 15 cents per kWh. (Coal mining + transport + sequestration increase + 280%)

Gas-fired as of 12/2010 will be at 14 cents per kWh (Henry Hub at $16 + permitting GHG offsets at + 65%)

PV, latest TF, as of 8/2009 36 cents per kWh

CPV on ground, including BTS as of 12/2009 37 cents per kWh.

Sterling Dish/Motor, when and if commissioned 34 cent per kWh

CSP Flat Panel to Power Tower, solar-thermal when commissioned 32 cent per kWh

CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Fresnel, when commissioned 28 cents per kWh

CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Single Collector with single receiver 33 cents per kWh

CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Twin Collector with Twin Receiver, coupled with 17 hours of twin HTF storage (base + peak load in parallel), when commissioned at 10 cents per kWh (each component-solar farm + storage component).
Notes: There will be plenty of lis pendens for design technology?s infringements. Copycats are already known, as well as Causes of Actions not limited to on multi-ground platforms, such as Constitutional Tort in regards to Private Land Use for Solar Farms, vs Environs.  ESQs are sharpening their pencils and ready.

Challenge me.
Respectfully,
Nick Panchev

RE: “In comparison, electricity from coal-fired power plants costs about 5 cents to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour”, et all issues at this blog. ///  WRONG. Coal-fired, as of 7/2010 will be at 15 cents per kWh. (Coal mining + transport + sequestration increase + 280%) ///  Gas-fired as of 12/2010 will be at 14 cents per kWh (Henry Hub at $16 + permitting GHG offsets at + 65%) ///  PV, latest TF, as of 8/2009 at 36 cents per kWh ///  CPV on ground, including BTS as of 12/2009 at 37 cents per kWh. ////  Sterling Dish/Motor, when and if commissioned 34 cent per kWh ////  CSP Flat Panel to Power Tower, solar-thermal when commissioned 32 cent per kWh ////  CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Fresnel, when commissioned 28 cents per kWh ////  CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Single Collector with single receiver 33 cents per kWh ////  CSP Parabolic Through solar-thermal Twin Collector with Twin Receiver, coupled with 17 hours of twin HTF storage (base + peak load in parallel), when commissioned at 10 cents per kWh (each component-solar farm + storage component). ///    Notes: There will be plenty of lis pendens for design technology’s infringements. Copycats are already known, as well as Causes of Actions not limited to on multi-ground platforms, such as Constitutional Tort in regards to Private Land Use for Solar Farms, vs Environs. ESQs are sharpening their pencils and ready.  ////  Challenge me. ////  Respectfully, Nick Panchev

This exact topic will be discussed at an upcoming conference by Don Murray of Starpoint Solar.

I belive the URL is:
http://www.cstpower-conference.com/

the event is Concentrating Solar Thermal Power June 4-5

Solar Thermal at the power plant, PV on my roof.

5 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour does not take into account the grave cost to the environment. I don’t believe that the problems caused by coal are reflected in this estimate.  Coal = Death to the Planet Earth, A slow steady dirty death by Global Warming. Leave the Dead Dinosaurs in the Ground. We are all witnessing the end of the fossil fuel Era. It’s about time. 

The “scale” of a solar power plant is not important, this argument is useless!

Thermal power plants can store very efficient energy in form of heat and can feed the energy when it is needed. It is correlating with the demand, controllable, and helping the network operators to balance network peaks.

Big scale PV Plants are only creating another peak in the network (noon time!) and make the existing plants more expensive, because they have to reduce the (optimum) load of the existing plant (e.g. coal, oil, gas) when PV is feeding in. To store electricity in batteries for peak or night time operation is far too expensive. That is why network operators prefer Solar Thermal Power.

If you think about how an electrical network is working, PV is only a good choice if you install decentralized systems near to the end user. This will help to unload the network. So roof installations are OK, big scale PV Plants are presently very fashionable, but in fact, they are disturbing the operation of the network. The world has severe network overload problems, not power plant problems. There are enough big Power Plants, but the networks getting hot when the air conditioning systems are switched on! The electrical networks need decentralized PV systems to unload the network and peak solar thermal systems for balancing peaks! It?s so simple!

Pricing: There is not only one power price. Basic 24 hour load can be produced very cheap with nuclear plants or coal plants.  If you have a peak, let say at 10.00 pm, (e.g. when everybody is switching on his air condition system in the bedroom) the network operator has to switch additionally expensive peak power plants. Some of these plants are working only for 2 hours a day. This power cost much more then any 24h production.  And PV is producing energy, when it is not even really needed. It should be cheaper.
A Solar Thermal Plant with 12 hour storage can collect the whole day energy in a heat storage and can feed the energy into the electrical network any time, if necessary in one hour. It is the most expensive form of electricity you can produce.
So if you compare PV plants with solar thermal plants, please compare them with equal situation and demand!

I give you an example:  How much cost one KWh in a 24 hour running time, lifetime 20 years?
Case (A) PV Plant with electrical Batteries for 24 hours,
Case (B) Solar Thermal Plant with Heat storage and Turbine.
I suppose, the KWh of the PV solution cost you in this case more then double! Every Technology has its application, but as long as ?storing electricity? is not getting much cheaper, PV is for decentralized rooftop installation and not the technology for big scale plants.  Have a nice day!

On the day Gov. Schwarzenegger proclaims a statewide drought emergency for California it should be mentioned that solar thermal power plants need 4 liters of water for cooling per each kWh produced. It is amazing that this fact is hardly taken into account in hardly any related article or discussion. Wonder why. The European / African DESERTEC project solves the problem by using ocean water which at the same time gets desalinated. This does not work in US desert areas.

HansR,

You confirm my feeling that once again Spain gets it wrong.  The regulations here effectively limit grid-tied systems to the major utility investors, because there is no netback grid tied systems allowed!  Its either on-grid or off-grid.  Additionally the contorted permit system requires the same permit procedure for a 1 kW grid-tied system as for a 40 MW system, the expense of which makes grid-tying a small generating system economically unattractive.  That no-netback policy, combined with favorable feed in tarrifs, have created the monster plant syndrome that does little of what PV’s ultimate potential would suggest is possible.  Just as you warn, large scale PV combined with a relatively weak grid has not solved any of the transmission problems between large generators and the many small villages and power reliability in rural areas remains weak.  It looks like PV in Spain cannot be utilized to strengthen availability as it should and will actually do more to hurt it.  Spain has taken away the major benefits of PV solar from the majority of consumers that have the most need for it and can use it most effectively in the distributed systems we need to have and delivered them to the political chronies, bankers and large utility operators, even though they are the least likely to be capable of using PV solar benefits to its maximum advantage, except of course to generate shareholder profits.  That is especially aggravating when you realize that the attractive feed-in rates are paid for with tax monies which the general population could otherwise recover by building their own small grid-tied netback systems.  Effectively a naturally distributed resource that should be in everyone’s hands is stolen, concentrated, nothing is improved and the grid gets weaker.  When will Spain ever get it right?

Corban: “4 liters of water for cooling per each kWh”.

BrightSource says their power-tower technology operates at high enough temperature to use air rather than water for cooling. “In order to conserve precious desert water, BrightSource uses air-cooling to convert the steam back into water.”
http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/dpt.htm

BrightSource (BS) also claimed the lands needed for their Ivanpah CSP proposal was disturbed land. (NYT Sep 08) This is false. It is prime desert tortoise habitat, pristine healthy carbon sequestering intact ecosystem. Then they stated they could build their mirrors around vegetation. FASLE! The project calls for a complete scrape of the 4,000 acres that will be needed for the 100’s of thousands of mirrors - plus roads in and out of the site.

Look, this article does not reveal some of the biggest problems with CSP - water, and the dirty little secret that most projects will burn natural gas. NG availability is a big part of the reason for BS siting their Ivanpah proposal where they did. How much NG does home and business owned rooftop PV require to operate?

And air cooled? That single project will still consume 35 million gallons of water per year at full build-out. And this is only what they are willing to admit - which hardly “holds water” based on their lengthy history of misinformation. Cumulatively we are looking at billions of gallons in So. Cal alone. Unacceptable! 

Cost analysis of CSP is also very skewed, but lets take BS at their word. Ivanpah will have a 400 MW capacity at full buildout, and cost approx 3 billion. That’s $7.50 per capacity watt, with NG supplement. By comparison, Southern California Edison has a 250 MW rooftop thinfilm PV proposal with a cost estimate of 1 billion - $4 a watt capacity. No ng, no water, no massive land destruction, no steam, no transmission and related line losses, no eminent domain, no SF6 emmission, etc etc. See the difference?

CSP is the biggest fraud in the new renewable energy generation revolution. These are Big Energy corps hoping to dump as much of their archaic mirror based systems before it is too late and their dirty little secrets are exposed. Dennis is correct. We need feed-in-tariffs, loan programs for home and business owners (not tax dollar driven cash grants like Big Energy gets), and a smart grid to increase efficiency - not land scraping, water wasting, steam spewing, transmission dependent, oldschool CSP. We need to understand that renewable energy is not site dependent like other energy sources. We do not have to accept the use of our tax dollars to fund an energy infrastructure that we will not have any ownership in, and that will actually increase our electricity bills substantially. Distributed PV allows us to become part of this renewable energy revolution. CSP and utility scale PV investors are only trying to keep us out.