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The problem is, no one wants to fund solar thermal power. There are worries that advances in photovoltaics might make solar thermal power obsolete over the 30 y
by gene-h 10y ago
The problem is, no one wants to fund solar thermal power. There are worries that advances in photovoltaics might make solar thermal power obsolete over the 30 year life of these plants.
- andrewfong 10y agoPhotovoltaics don't come with a built-in energy storage solution (needed if you want solar to be part of a base-load solution). The risk is really from photovoltaics + better batteries (or some other generic storage system).
- cjensen 10y agoThe Ivanpah solar thermal plant was funded [1] and many others [2]. Why do you say no one wants to? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_st...
- bronson 10y agoDid you read the third paragraph of your first link?
- cjensen 10y agoI was responding to the assertion that no one was investing in solar thermal -- I'm not defending the investment.
- PhantomGremlin 10y agoWhat I don't like about "cheerleading" articles like this is they didn't mention the problem installations such as Ivanpah. A few damning sentences from the Ivanpah Wiki: In November 2014, Associated Press reported that the plant was producing only "about half of its expected annual output". The California Energy Commission issued a statement blaming this on "clouds, jet contrails and weather". When you're blaming "jet contrails" for your problems, there's a whole lot of hurt being swept under the rug.
- chongli 10y agoIn other words, they're admitting they made some drastic overestimations in their model. They are human beings after all. How many solar thermal plants have been built before? How much experience do we have with estimating their output?
- PhantomGremlin 10y agoHow many solar thermal plants have been built before? CSP has been around for a while, but not many plants have been built in the USA. Those that have been built haven't done all too well. Here's a plant that was operational from 1982 to 1986: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_One The most memorable thing about it was you could easily see it from airplanes flying in and out of SoCal.