When it first came online in late 2013, the massive Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant in the California desert looked like the possible future of renewable energy. Now its troubles underline the challenges facing concentrated solar power, which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays to make stea Contact online >>
When it first came online in late 2013, the massive Ivanpah concentrated solar power plant in the California desert looked like the possible future of renewable energy. Now its troubles underline the challenges facing concentrated solar power, which uses mirrors to focus the sun''s rays to make steam and produce electricity.
Last week the California Public Utilities Commission gave the beleaguered Ivanpah project, the world''s largest concentrated solar facility, one year to increase its electricity production to fulfill its supply commitments to two of the state''s largest utilities (see "One of the World''s Largest Solar Facilities Is in Trouble"). The $2.2 billion plant is designed to have 377 megawatts of capacity. But it has been plagued by charges of numerous bird deaths (the birds are supposedly zapped by the fierce beams between the mirrors and the collecting tower; these charges have been largely discounted by environmental impact studies) and accusations of production shortfalls.
Saying that over the last 12 months the facility has reached 97.5 percent of its annual contracted production, BrightSource officials dismissed the supply issues as a normal part of the plant''s startup phase. But the troubles at Ivanpah have joined the delay or cancellation of several high-profile projects as evidence that concentrated solar power could be a fading technology.
Last year BrightSource canceled a 500-megawatt concentrated solar project planned for Inyo County, California. That move followed the 2014 decision of French nuclear giant Areva, which acquired an Australian concentrated solar startup called Ausra in 2010, to exit the solar business after losing "tens of millions" of dollars. And the Spanish company Abengoa, which has developed several large concentrated solar projects and received $2.7 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy, is in talks to restructure its debt and is in danger of becoming Spain''s largest-ever bankruptcy.
Most of these shuttered projects have been doomed by one factor: cost. Given cheap natural gas and the continued fall in solar photovoltaic prices, concentrated solar has been priced out of the market. Concentrated solar plants use thousands of mirrors to focus the sun''s rays on a tower, where they heat a liquid to make steam. The mirrors, known as heliostats, are motorized so as to track the sun''s path over the course of the day. The process has certain advantages over solar photovoltaic technology, including higher efficiencies in terms of the amount of solar energy converted to electricity, but in today''s low-cost environment it''s simply too expensive.
At least that''s true in the United States. Executives at BrightSource and rival SolarReserve point out that a number of projects are moving forward in other countries that lack low-cost supplies of natural gas, particularly in the Middle East and Africa. China, which is plowing billions of yuan into clean energy schemes in order to reduce its dependency on coal, plans to build at least a gigawatt of concentrated solar capacity in the coming years, and could expand that to 10 gigawatts. Going forward, both companies also plan to add energy storage capacity, in the form of molten salt, that can enable new plants to continue producing electricity for as much as 10 hours when the sun''s not shining.
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The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is a huge facility that produces power for thousands of homes. Unfortunately, there have also been some unintended negative consequences
Stretching across 3,500 acres of the Mojave Desert, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is the largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the world. Costing $2.2bn and taking more than three years to build, the facility is the best-known project in the growing CSP market. Having said that, not many are aware that establishments like Ivanpah exist. While solar energy has generally become better established, concentrated solar power remains a little known development.
When most people talk of solar power, they are usually referring to photovoltaic cells that directly convert sunlight into electrical energy. Conversely, CSP works by using a large number of mirrors to reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a central receiver, which then converts it to heat. It comes with benefits and drawbacks when compared with photovoltaic solar, but for some parts of the world, CSP is a perfect fit.
The Ivanpah plant, which formally opened in February 2014, has not been without its critics. In February this year, California''s San Bernardino County – home to the Ivanpah facility – passed a bill banning the further construction of large solar projects. Clearly, even green technology is not always welcomed.
A place in the sunIf a bird''s eye view of Ivanpah helps to show its sheer scale, it doesn''t reveal much about how the solar facility actually works. The plant produces energy in a similar way to how most of the world''s electricity is made: using steam-turned turbines. Across three distinct sites, more than 300,000 software-controlled mirrors follow the path of the Sun, reflecting its rays onto the summits of three 459ft-tall towers. At the top of each of these towers is a boiler that is rapidly heated by the concentrated sunlight, producing high-temperature steam that is piped back down to turbines on the ground.
Ivanpah''s current energy output of 392MW – enough to power 140,000 homes – may be impressive, but its real benefit could be as a trailblazer for other CSP plants. One of the major problems facing solar power is how to generate energy when cloud cover (or nightfall) gets in the way. However, CSP plants can be paired with thermal storage – usually in the form of molten salt – to enable energy production to continue even after the Sun has gone down.
Though Ivanpah does not boast thermal storage, one of the facility''s operators, BrightSource Energy, has used information gleaned from the plant''s operations to include thermal energy storage in subsequent facilities, including the Huanghe Qinghai Delingha Solar Thermal Power Project in China.
In the firing lineWhile environmentalists normally endorse solar power projects, this hasn''t always been the case at Ivanpah. Although the land upon which the facility is built may look fairly desolate, the Mojave Desert boasts a surprisingly rich level of biodiversity. As well as milkweed and queen butterflies, the area around the Ivanpah site is home to a number of desert tortoises. With growing fears that the solar plant could be harming tortoise numbers, operators have spent $55m on mitigating the ecological damage.
Despite these efforts, environmental concerns persist. One particularly grim side effect of the plant''s construction is that birds, attracted to the insects gathering at the top of the towers, are incinerated as they pass through the beams of concentrated sunlight. According to estimates, this results in some 6,000deaths every year.
Just as the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System represents a significant leap forward in the development of solar power, it also serves as an important case study on the unintended consequences that can arise from the deployment of green technology. As more CSP plants are built around the world, operators would do well to consider both the good and bad that they could be doing to the environment.
SolarReserve, one of America''s last remaining CSP developers, appears to have ceased operations — just as some global markets may be warming up.
There are fears for one of America’s last two remaining concentrated solar power developers as the embattled sector attempts to pivot to a new business model abroad.
SolarReserve, which developed the 110-megawatt Crescent Dunes concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in Nevada, is thought to have halted operations after losing its only income-generating U.S. contract and selling foreign projects including Aurora in Australia and Likana in Chile last year.
The company could not be reached by email or phone this month, and its website was no longer active. Industry veteran Luis Crespo, president of Spanish CSP association Protermosolar, told GTM he believes SolarReserve is no longer operational and its assets have been sold off as part of a liquidation.
Kevin Smith, SolarReserve''s long-time CEO, took a job a year ago as CEO for the Americas at Lightsource BP, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Santa Monica, California-based SolarReserve lost the income from its only U.S. power-purchase agreement, with the Berkshire Hathaway-owned Nevada state utility NV Energy, last October, according to a lawsuit filed at the time. NV Energy had agreed to buy electricity from Crescent Dunes up until 2040 but broke off the contract over performance failures at the plant.
Crescent Dunes was developed with $737 million in U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantees and run by a SolarReserve-linked entity called Tonopah Solar Energy. SolarReserve’s October lawsuit claimed the Department of Energy had gained control of Tonopah’s board in a bid to close Crescent Dunes after receiving NV Energy’s default notice.
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