plugging into the sun - energy storage system price

In the early morning of November, on a clear morning in the mohaave desert, the sun barely touched the peaks of the McCullough mountains, giving off a cool pink glow.
Behind them, a full moon is sinking under the glare of giva in Las Vegas.
Nevada solar energy one is sleeping.
But the work of the day is about to begin.
It's hard to imagine how beautiful a power plant would be: 250 acres of gently curved mirrors lined up in long slots like canals.
They stopped on the ground overnight and began to wake up with more than 182,000 of the Sun, following the sun.
"It looks like this is going to be a 700-
"Degree day," said an operator in the control room.
His job is to monitor rows of bowl-shaped mirrors as they focus the sun on long steel pipes filled with recycled oil and heat it to 750 degrees Fahrenheit.
From the mirror field, sparkling liquid is poured into huge radiators that extract heat and boil water into steam.
Steam-powered turbines and generators that push up to 64 megawatts of power onto the grid are enough to power up 14,000 households or some Las Vegas casinos.
"This is a very traditional industry once the system produces steam --
"Standard stuff," said Robert cable, factory manager, pointing to gas.
Power plant on the other side of Eldorado Valley Drive.
"The tools and components we get are the same as the place across the street.
"When Nevada Solar One went online in 2007, it was the first large solar power plant in the United States in 17 years.
In the meantime, solar technology has boomed elsewhere.
Nevada Solar One belongs to Acciona, Spain, where it generates electricity and sells it to the regional utility company NV Energy.
The mirror was made in Germany.
Wearing a helmet and sunglasses, cable and I sat in his pickup truck and drove slowly after a row of mirrors.
The man of a waterwheel is washing something.
"Any dust will affect them," Cable said . ".
On the far edge of the mirror field, we stopped and walked out of the truck to observe carefully.
To show how strong the glass is, the cable taps the glass like a drum.
On top of his head, at the focal point of the parabola, the pipe that transports the oil is coated with black ceramics to absorb the light and wrap it in an air-free glass cylinder for insulation.
On a clear summer, when the sun shines directly above the head, Nevada solar can convert about 21% of the sun's rays into electricity.
The gas plant is more efficient, but the fuel is free.
It will not launch planets-
Carbon dioxide warming
Every 30 seconds or so, when the motor moves the mirror to a higher point, a soft hum is made;
By noon, they will look up straight.
It's very quiet here, and one can barely understand how much work is being done: each of the 760 mirror arrays can generate about 84,000 watts of power, almost 113 hp. By 8 a. m.
The oil delivered through the pipeline has reached the working temperature.
Spray white plume from the cooling stack.
Half an hour later, the sound of the steam turbine in the power station reached a high level-pitched scream.
Nevada solar energy one is ready to go online.
As Washington's new administration promises to tackle global warming and loosen control of foreign oil, solar energy may eventually grow old.
Last year, oil prices soared above $140 a barrel and then plummeted as the economy slipped, reminding people that it is dangerous to link the future with such unpredictable things as oil.
In the face of the worst recession since 1930, Washington is providing guarantees for massive infrastructure reform projects, including energy supplies.
In his inaugural address, President Barack Obama pledged to "use the sun, wind and soil to fuel our cars and run our factories ".
"His 2010 budget requires doubling the country's renewable energy capacity in three years.
Wind turbines and biofuels will be important contributors.
But no energy is richer than the sun.
"If we talk about geothermal or wind energy, the amount of all these other renewable sources is limited," said Eicke Weber, director of the Solar Systems Institute at frauenhof, told me last fall in Germany.
"The total power demand for humans on Earth is about 16 tawatts," he said . ". (
Taiwa is trillions of Watts. )
"In 2020 it is expected to grow to 20 tawatts.
The sunlight in the solid part of the Earth is 120,000 Watts.
From this point of view, the energy from the sun is actually infinite.
"There are two main ways to control it.
The first is to generate steam, either a parabolic trough like Nevada, or a flat computer field --
The guided mirror, known as the day mirror, focuses the sun on a receiver at the top of a giant "power tower.
"The second way is to directly convert sunlight into electric energy using photovoltaic (PV)
Panels made of semiconductors such as silicon.
Each method has its advantages.
At present, steam power generation is also called centralized solar or solar thermal power generation, which is more efficient than photovoltaic power generation. A larger proportion of sunlight is converted into electricity.
However, to bring electricity to the market, a large amount of land and long transmission lines are needed.
Photovoltaic panels can be placed on the roof where electricity is needed.
Both sources have an obvious drawback: When cloudy, they fade and disappear at night.
But engineers are already developing systems to store energy in dark hours.
Optimists say that with stable and gradual improvements, there is no need for a huge breakthrough. with the strong support of the government, solar energy can be as economical and efficient as fossil fuels.
Pessimists say they had heard about it 30 years ago during Jimmy Carter's presidency.
This is also a period of national crisis triggered by the Arab oil embargo in 1973.
President Carter spoke to the nation wearing a cardigan, calling for a new national energy policy in which solar power played a big role.
The Islamic Revolution in Iran caused oil prices to soar again in 1979.
American drivers lined up for petrol, and their radio played songs from Vince Vance and the Warriors, such as bombing Iran (
Singing the song of the Beach Boy "Barbara Ann).
Carter kept his promise to install solar water heaters on the roof of the White House.
In the next few years, two large parabolic slots, segs I and II (
For solar power stations)
Installed about 160 miles southwest of Las Vegas near daggot, California.
Then there were seven more factories at the Cramer Junction and next to the waterless Harper Lake.
The plants are still running about a million mirrors on about 1,600 acres of land, with a total power of 354 MW.
They look like a mirage from a distance.
The momentum has not continued.
Oil prices fell as the Iranian oil crisis led to economic adjustment.
As the sense of urgency decreases and research funding increases, solar energy remains a secondary factor in the energy equation.
When President Reagan removed the solar water heater from the roof of the White House, the SEGS plant was still under construction.
The first solar revolution failed.
Twenty years later, a new solar revolution is likely to begin.
Another legacy of the Carter era, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
In the Golden Zone, the government's main research centers for solar, wind, hydrogen and other alternative fuels are preparing for a revival.
When I visited last fall, a new research campus and headquarters were under construction, right on the Golden side of the mountain.
The five-acre photovoltaic panel on the countertop will provide food for the labs and offices below.
This is probably just the beginning.
Once viewed as a stepchild by the government, NREL will benefit from additional funding from the Obama administration for renewable energy.
"Solar energy is now a small part of the United States. S.
"It generates ten per cent of electricity," said Robert Hosey, deputy director of the lab . ".
But that number is expected to grow.
By 2030, 10 to 20% of the country's peak electricity demand will be provided by solar energy.
"In order to reduce costs and reduce the need for incentives, NREL's engineers are looking at mirrors made of light polymers instead of glass, as well as receiving tubes that absorb more sunlight and reduce heat.
They are also working on the biggest problem with solar energy: how to store some of the heat generated during the day so that it can be released later.
"Especially in the southwest, peak loads are during the day, but when the sun goes down, they don't end," said NREL project manager Mark Mehos . ".
People go home from work and turn on the lights and air conditioning.
They may plug in electric cars soon.
Last year, near Guadix, Spain, east of Granada, the first commercial solar plant with a heat reservoir opened.
During the day, sunlight from the mirror field is used to heat the molten salt.
In the evening, when the salt cools, it emits heat to produce more steam.
In Arizona, the Solana power station will also be stored in molten salt.
When it went live in 2012, the three-square-mile chute would generate 280 MW of power for Phoenix and Tucson.
Solana was built by Abengoa solara, a Spanish company, which shows how far the United States has fallen behind in the development of this technology.
Back in the 1980 s, an engineer named Roland husstrom calculated that if the photovoltaic panel covered other large solar technologies, it would only cover three-
Ten per cent of the United States, 100-by-100-
They can power the whole country.
People think he wants to lay mohaway with silicon.
Hulstrom recently sat in NREL's office and said: "The environmental activists stand up and say you can't go out and cover the square in the hundred miles . ".
But that's not what he meant.
"You can cover the parking lot with photovoltaic.
You can put it on the roof.
"Twenty years later, the contribution of photovoltaic panels to the national power supply remains small.
But on the roofs of California, Nevada and other states with good sun and tax benefits, they are almost as familiar with air conditioners, although they are not as developed as solar thermal power, their future may be brighter.
At present, panels are expensive, and their efficiency is only about 10 to 20% compared to the 24% parabolic trough.
History is more important than physics.
After the sun burst in the middle
1980, many of the best engineers migrate to the computing industry using the same raw material silicon and other semiconductors.
Following Moore's law, the performance of the microprocessor is doubled every two years, while the solar energy is gone.
Now, some engineering and technical personnel have returned to the field of solar energy.
But not without the help of the government.
If the state does not set a deadline for utilities to generate 20% from renewable energy by 2015, Nevada solar power will never be built. (
More than 20 states now have renewable energy.
Earlier this year, Congress was debating a federal standard. )
During the peak demand period, on a hot afternoon in Las Vegas, when the production cost is the highest, the power of the solar power plant is almost as cheap as natural gas. fired neighbor.
But that's only because the $ 30% federal tax credit helped offset construction costs.
Researchers at NREL are taking advantage of the fact that different semiconductors capture different colors from a beam of sunlight.
Last year, they built a 40-year-old photovoltaic cell by layering compounds known as indium phosphate and indium arsenic, and using lenses to concentrate sunlight.
Efficiency 8% (
Broke the world record).
But it is far from ready for mass production.
"The technology is very complicated," said Ray stées, deputy director of the laboratory . ".
"We can buy it now for $10,000 per square centimeter, but not many people will buy it.
"The other way is to exchange lower costs for higher efficiency.
Although they produce less power per square inch, they are thin
Thin-Film semiconductors require less raw materials, which makes them a cheap alternative to large photovoltaic devices.
Two companies in the United States, First Solar and nano solar, say they can now make films.
The cost of thin film solar cells is about $1, very close to the cost required to compete with fossil fuels.
Looking ahead, NREL engineers are working on photovoltaic liquids.
"Our goal is to make it the cost of a gallon of paint," stées said . ".
"The efficiency will not reach 40 or 50%.
They will be 10%
But if it's cheap, you can paint your wall, hook it up and go.
"Photovoltaic panels are not limited to individual homes or warehouses.
In the northeast suburb of Las Vegas, an average of 25% of the power available at the airbase is provided by PV.
In some winter where air is not needed --
Air conditioning, 100% of the base is powered by solar energy.
Last fall, when I looked out of the 72,416 sun --
Tracking the panel, the wind between the row and the row, I can see the attraction: there is no tubing, heat exchanger, boiler, generator, and also the silicon atom can be cooled with solar photons to generate current.
The system was built in 2007 by SunPower Corporation in just 26 weeks and produced 14.
The 2 MW makes it the largest photovoltaic power generation facility in the United States, although it is only the largest photovoltaic power generation facility in the world.
Almost all the larger countries are in Spain, and Spain, like Germany, has invested heavily in solar energy.
Storage systems are not yet included in these factories.
Due to direct photovoltaic power generation, there is no heat to capture in the molten salt tank.
One option is to transfer some photovoltaic current during the day to drive the pump and compress the air into the underground cave.
In Germany and Alabama, compressed air has been used to store cheaper night-time outputs from traditional power plants for use during peak days.
At the solar plant, the cycle will reverse: depressed when electricity is needed at night
The energy released from the sunlight for a few hours will be released and rushed out to rotate the turbine.
Now those rely on-
The grid with PV panels on the roof relies on ordinary batteries to spend the night.
They may have solar energy in the future.
A power electrolytic device that breaks down water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen.
Recombining the gas in the fuel cell will generate power again.
The idea is old, but last year Daniel Nocera, a chemist at MIT, reported a possible breakthrough: a new catalyst that could make it cheaper to break down water.
Nocera likes to lift up a large plastic water bottle at a public lecture.
He said that all the night-time electricity needs of a family can be stored in five of them, leaving enough power to run electric vehicles.
No one knows the future of solar energy in detail.
But there's a feeling that if we can make a jump promise, it's a big chance.
Start technology.
"It turned out to look like a pie --in-the-
"The idea of the sky," Michelle Price, energy manager at Nellis, told me last fall when I visited the base's new PV plant.
"It seems impossible.
"Many things seem possible now.
On a cold morning west of Frankfurt, Germany, on December, fog hung over trees, and clouds covered the sun.
Shivering on the ridge above the town of Morbach, I looked at the blade of 330foot-
High wind turbines fly in and out of the dark.
Below, a photovoltaic board is struggling with light.
Who would have thought that Germany would become the world's largest producer of photovoltaic power with a capacity of more than five thousand MW?
A small part of this power comes from concentrated factories, such as small factories in Morbach, and even large factories in 272.
Akawaldpolenz solar park, built recently with thin
Film technology from an abandoned Soviet air base near Leipzig.
Land is expensive in Germany and solar panels are installed on roofs, farmhouses, even football fields and along highways.
Although scattered in rural areas, they are connected to the State Grid and utilities even need to pay a premium of about 50 euros per kilowatt to the smallest producerhour.
"We are paid to live in this House," said Wolfgang schner, a resident of the Solar Settlement apartment building in solarsiedlung, Freiburg.
Outside, the snow on the solar panels covering the development roof is sliding.
The day before, there were only 5 systems produced by snoole. 8 kilowatt-
Not enough for a German family.
But on a sunny day, it produces more than seven times as much as it did.
After enjoying coffee and Christmas cookies, Schneller laid some prints on the table.
His personal power plant generated 6,187 KW electricity in 2008.
Hours, more than double the consumption of the schnour people.
When the amount they used was reduced from the amount they produced, they took out more than 2,500 euros (nearly $3,700)ahead.
Sitting on the edge of the Black Forest in the southern part of the country, the travel manual called "sunny Freiburg" has been changed by the solar boom.
Across the street from Solarsiedlung, there is a parking lot and a school covered with photovoltaic panels.
In the old city of the city, towering PV walls greet visitors at the train station.
The next generation of technology is being developed at the nearby fraunhove Solar Systems Institute.
In one project, the use of a Fresnel lens to condense sunlight 500 times increased the efficiency of standard photovoltaic panels by 23%.
This is the demand created by the government's "feed ".
Eicke Weber, director of the Institute, said "tariffs" have driven such research.
Anyone installing a photovoltaic system can be guaranteed on it.
The 20-year market rate is equivalent to an annual return of 8% on initial investment.
"This is a clever mechanism," Webb said . "
"I always say that America is for those idealists, the idealists who want to save the Birkenstock crowd.
In Germany, the law targets anyone who wants to get a 8% return on investment in 20 years.
"The most spectacular display of solar energy in the future may be the Spanish solar complex Plataforma solu car located in the Andalucia plain.
I have seen pictures of 11 people.
Megawatt power tower called ps10.
Rise 377 feet high, surrounded by 624 Sun
The tracking mirror that reflects the beam to its top ignites the glow that shines like a new star.
Next to it, the PS20 has completed twice the fixed-day mirror and double the power.
But when I got to the top of the Hill 15 miles west of Seville, I saw the weather in Germany follow me as well.
The valley is shrouded in fog, which reminds us that even in the hot areas of southern Spain, solar energy must be replenished by storage and other forms of electricity.
"We had a problem last night and there was no tower," said Valerio Fernandez, plant director owned by abingoa solar, as he greeted me at the door.
When we looked up at the PS10, he laughed and its head disappeared in the clouds.
On a normal day, the power concentrated on the tower can reach 4 MW per square meter, far exceeding the power used safely.
In order to avoid the melting of the receiver, the operator of the ps10 must limit the flux.
The power generation Tower is a different version of solar heat and is another way to generate steam using sunlight.
Although the large and flat area is a good proof of the parabolic trough, the power tower can fit the hilly terrain, and the mirrors are aligned individually to gather on the elevated boiler.
Because a tower heats the steam to a higher temperature, it may be more efficient.
However, Abengoa solar is hedging its bets as the solar industry is still in its infancy.
Not far from the power tower, the crane is being assembled into rows of troughs.
An advanced photovoltaic field is extended behind the PS10, tracking the sun on both axes
South and East-
Ensure best exposure throughout the year.
To strengthen the light, mirrors or Fresnel lenses are installed on each panel.
"Profit from every ray of light in the sun is our goal," Fernandez said . ".
Back in the United States, I read a magazine article challenging the United States to move forward faster in using the Sun: "Every hour, it floods the earth with a large amount of thermal energy equivalent to 21 billion tons of coal, "calculated by the author.
"The huge production of solar energy is almost unimaginable.
Showing huge steam with a drawing of a future solar plant
To produce a mirror, the title of this article is "why do we have no solar energy ? "?
The date was September 1953.
We may succeed this time.
On last February, BrightSource Energy signed a series of contracts with Southern California Edison for a power tower in the Southwest desert, which could eventually provide one.
3 GW of power, equivalent to a large coalfired plant.
At the same time, Pacific Gas and Power has commissioned more than one company.
8 gigawatts of parabolic trough, photovoltaic and power tower of the BrightSource.
Environmental activists are already preparing to fight against some of these projects;
They cover large deserts, and some people may cool down with a lot of scarce water.
Like any form of power generation, solar energy also has its trade --offs.
It still has a long way to go.
While I was in Nevada, I drove to Hoover Damo, an early mass producer of renewable power, and took a deep-down trip.
The rapids of the Colorado River falling from Lake Mead rotate two rows of parallel giant turbines at the bottom.
Only one turbine can generate 130 MW, twice as much solar power as in Nevada.
But the Hoover Dam makes me feel hopeful.
Back to the top, when I read the damaged brass plaque and appreciated the Art Deco building, I thought about how the country responded to the challenge of the 1930 Great Depression.
As stated in the earlier economic stimulus plan, the new agreement includes not only Hoover, but also the Tennessee Valley Authority, which brings hydropower to the south-east, as well as the Rural Electrified authority, connecting wires to the center.
At the time of the economic disaster, the country's energy landscape has changed.
After 70 years, every time we switch the switch, we will still reap the benefits.