THIS MASSIVE SOLAR FARM, ONE OF THE LARGEST PROJECTS IN DOD HISTORY 5

[cmoreride]

In the western Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, the world’s largest and highest-capacity solar farm is setting a new precedent for the way solar energy is collected and used.

https://thedebrief.org/this-massive...57RLv80_67GOHRVnQJCbts4WBvNhFt8biA5R9MX6bIIXw

 

[dik]

It's a start...

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

We, except for dik, don't care about these fluff pieces. Do you have any information on how it has performed?

I am assuming you have worked on this project?

 

[Brian Malone]

The scale of the project is impressive. That is good for the intended requirement of generating electricity but also illustrates the Achilles Heel of trying to replace energy produced by nuclear or natural gas. This facility covers 4600 acres to produce 875 MWatt; around 190 KW per acre. The shutdown San Onofre (SONGS) facility covers about 20 acres and output 2.2 GW; 110 MW per acre. And SONGS output day and night, sunny days and cloudy days. Certainly, SONGS had many reliability issues (as have many nuclear power plants) but often I wonder if part of the problem is the facilities were built based on low-bid award for contracting. What if the premise used for awarding the construction and equipment was driven instead by awarding the contract to pay for the best implementation and reliability? Over the long run, would the investment by the operating utility have penciled out more favorably? Yes, there is the radioactive waste to deal with. The solar farm has an eco-impact: it has covered 4600 acres of land. Whether it is in the Mojave Desert or not, that is corrupting some ecosystem. Putting solar on building rooftops seems to make a better compromise than covering open land. Certainly the distributed nature adds complication and induces some efficiency loss but there is a lot of area available on rooftops and the buildings already exist.

 

[GregLocock]

A couple of years back the state of Victoria released a document detailing exactly why off shore wind was essential. If it isn't used, 70% of Victoria's agricultural land will be needed for onshore wind and solar. This was their main argument why offshore was essential.

Unfortunately offshore wind was made much more difficult for various cultural/biological reasons, to the extent that only floating offshore wind is 'feasible'. Yet large scale deployment of floating offshore wind is a fantasy.

The document has since been redacted.

So we have a state policy for mumble% renewable by 2035, and no practical way of getting there, since ripping up 70% of our farmland seems like a damn fool idea.

Cheers

Greg Locock


New here? Try reading these, they might help FAQ731-376

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[LittleInch]

Definitely a bit of a puff piece, but pretty impressive.

Cost appears to be about $2Bn

Looks like its a solar tracking array, at least vertically so will be better efficiency.

I do like the "Only in America" quote.... The Chinese and Arabs have some much bigger solar farms.

Not even in the top 10 according to this list.

https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/sol...d 600,000 homes,combined capacity of 1.51 GW.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[LittleInch]

Greg,

That just doesn't sound right to me. That's about 7 million hectares / 17 M acres.

Wind turbines don't really impact farmland production do they? Solar panels I can see, but turbines?

The floating offshore wind stuff is a bit in its infancy alright, but will come.

Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[TugboatEng]

Wind turbines do require some type of exclusion zone or setback. That might make farming around them difficult.

https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/-/media/...ass-Solar-Wind/Public-Safety-and-Setbacks.pdf

I don't understand how anyone can think floating wind is a better alternative. Floating platforms are common in the oil industry but they are by far the most expensive type to operate. Floating platforms have access to better quality wells. Do floating platforms give access to better quality wind?

 

[dik]

Because of the large land use, they should not be constructed on arable land.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[LittleInch]

As ever there seems to be a degree of mis information going on here.

There's a big difference between a safety distance for a house or building and either arable or livestock farming. There will be some loss of land for the base, roads and surface buildings, but I doubt its more than 10% of the land area. What "large land use" did you have in mind Dik?

E.g.

https://up-acre.co.uk/blog/42

Given you need to put wind turbines where it is errrr windy, this is more commonly on high land where the ground is relatively poor.

Offshore turbines are located in areas again where it is shown there is more dependable wind. That tends to be some distance off shore where the wind is unaffected by mountains or towns.

It's more than in many places in the world the continental shelf drops off pretty fast. We're lucky in that extent in the UK as we have some relatively shallow seas where water depth is 20-40m in large sections of the Southern North sea and the Irish Sea, but you often see the water depth going down rapidly about 5-10km from the coast.



Remember - More details = better answers
Also: If you get a response it's polite to respond to it.

 

[dik]

No misinformation... just to keep land that can be used for growing stuff, they should be located on land that has little use, other than providing space.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[SnTMan]

Ever been to Kansas?

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[JoshPlumSE]

This facility covers 4600 acres to produce 875 MWatt; around 190 KW per acre. The shutdown San Onofre (SONGS) facility covers about 20 acres and output 2.2 GW; 110 MW per acre. And SONGS output day and night, sunny days and cloudy days.

Yup. I'll also point out that the facility is likely located far away from where the power will be consumed. Making the efficiency worse due to power loss in transmission. SONGS was reasonably close to the population centers that would use it.

Little Inch says the project cost was about $2 billion dollars.

The Ivanpah solar facility (which uses mirror to reflect light and create heat to power a steam generator) also cost about $2 billion dollars. But, it produces less than 400 MegaWatts of power on its 3500 Acres.

So, this site (if the puff piece reporting is correct) would be dramatically more efficient in terms of land usage for max power output compared to Ivanpah. Even in terms of construction cost vs power output this new facility would be much more efficient as well.

These sorts of "innovative" power projects are (IMO) really important as a way to test out how easily scalable these sorts of "green power" projects are. But, we really have to wait and see how well they perform in real life over a couple of decades. I expect maintenance costs for both of these projects to be significantly higher than traditional power generation. So, only time will tell how efficient they are in terms of cost per MW generated over their design life.

 

[dik]

Nope... why?

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[SnTMan]

They farm everything there including wind.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[hokie66]

I think what this discussion shows is that a mixture of power plants will be required into the foreseeable future. Solar and wind will play a part, but nuclear and fossil fuel plants will still be required.

 

[dik]

If arable soil... best to have solar panels somewhere the soil isn't so great.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[dik]

I'm not so sure about fossil fuels; we'll have to wait and find out.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik

 

[ACtrafficengr]

If arable soil... best to have solar panels somewhere the soil isn't so great.

The idea of "Agrovoltaics" is getting some banter. A project near me is proposing using the land around the panels for sheep pasture. There is also talk of growing shade-liking crops under the panels.

My glass has a v/c ratio of 0.5

Maybe the tyranny of Murphy is the penalty for hubris. -

http://xkcd.com/319/

 

[dik]

The solar panels likely should not be constructed on 'useful' soil. There has to be soil that is unsuitable for farming.

-----*****-----
So strange to see the singularity approaching while the entire planet is rapidly turning into a hellscape. -John Coates

-Dik