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To put 200 gigawatts into perspective, the largest US nuclear power plant generates 4 gigawatts. The US total generating capacity in the summer is 1000 gigawatt
by mjrpes 9y ago
To put 200 gigawatts into perspective, the largest US nuclear power plant generates 4 gigawatts. The US total generating capacity in the summer is 1000 gigawatts.
- rgbrenner 9y agoYou cant compare nameplate capacity to actual energy production. You have to adjust the nameplate capacity by the capacity factor first. It's almost certainly PV.. because the price -- $200B for 200GW -- matches perfectly the current price of a new utility scale PV plant ($1/Watt). Those plants have a capacity factor of 10-30%. It'll probably be close to the 30%. So that would reduce the 200GW to 60GW.
- nigelcleland 9y agoNot quite, the instantaneous energy output from the system will be at 200GW when the sunshine is at a maximum. The average output of the system would be 60GW (at a 30% capacity factor). In terms of total energy this would equate to around 525TWh worth (60 * 8760 / 1000). Or, 525,000,000 MWh. That is, for every $1/MWh that the solar station gets paid for it's output it will receive half a billion dollars a year. Now, a station of this size would massively depress power prices throughout the region unless there was some form of large scale storage unit which could soak it up. Probably more impactful is the Saudis are currently using oil for their power stations which is heavily subsidized.
- electricityUser 9y agoIf you get 2000 kWh/yr per kWp from PV there and have an installation of 200 GWp you'll end up with 400 TWh per year. If we assume a 25 year lifetime for this installation that's 9600 TWh. At cost of 200 billion dollars, wouldn't a MWh from this system cost close to $21 instead of $1? Or - taking your numbers - the installation would have to last 400 years without operational costs considered. Isn't that a loss for whoever invests in something like this?
- Reason077 9y ago$21/MWh is very cheap energy. Far cheaper than any modern nuclear plant, and significantly cheaper than most fossil-fuelled energy even before you account for carbon/pollution externalities.
- onetimemanytime 9y agois that 2.1 cents a kwh? Dirt cheap. I've read that solar panels (I have one for hot water) might lose some efficacy over the decades but even those installed 40 years ago are still working. I guess at some point it will be cost effective to replace them...or if the math works out leave them working at, say, 60% efficiency, and build a new one. It's not like they're running out of sunny places over there.
- llukas 9y ago...and you do the same other types of energy production. For nuclear/coal what is reported as nameplate is thermal energy produced which is different than maximum electric power generated.
- Maakuth 9y agoThat is not correct, typical nameplate capacity is for the electrical power. There's of course a less-than-one capacity factor due to plant uptime, but with nuclear it can be more than 0.9.
- llukas 9y agoSource? Mine is: https://energiogklima.no/kommentar/iea-counts-fossil-fuels-threefold-versus-wind-and-solar/ https://energiogklima.no/kommentar/iea-counts-fossil-fuels-t...