4 ms·

It would cost 26 trillion every 20 years, as the article mentions the lifetime of this park to be 20 years.

• ericd 7y ago
  1.3T/yr doesn’t seem terrible for energy for the entire world.
  • cure 7y ago
    Right. Also, at the rate solar installation prices are plummeting, it'll be a fraction of the cost in 20 years.
• Obi_Juan_Kenobi 7y ago
  25 years is the duration of the contract; the plant does not become defunct at the end of that period. Projects like this are contracted over fairly long initial periods to cover capital costs and so forth, but not so long that governments are locked into bad deals long-term. At the end of a contract period, a new deal is negotiated to continue operations unless it isn't beneficial to do so. Solar plant operations and maintenance costs are relatively low compared to other kinds of generation, so it's unlikely that the plant will become defunct at the end of the 25 year period. Solar panel performance at the end of a 25 year period will likely be between 90-80% of initial performance. This is well within what is required for useful economic generation. Most likely, a new deal with be made at lower prices because no capex is needed. Panel degradation is relatively constant at ~0.6-1% per year. This means that a well-performing panel would be producing 50% of it's rated output after a century, or 36% with poor performance. These are long-term solutions.
• xbmcuser 7y ago
  In 20 years the park would have recovered it's investment with a profit. It could keep running after but they will need to calculate if to keep running those or installing newer more efficient panels will be more profitable. BTW the original calculation of $26trillion is an over estimation as even a $100 billion investment brings down costs further as solar is still an improving technology.