5 ms·

For comparison, a 20 megawatt power plant that runs on diesel can fit in a standard shipping container: http://www.directindustry.com/prod/hyundai-heavy-industr

by wcoenen 14y ago

For comparison, a 20 megawatt power plant that runs on diesel can fit in a standard shipping container: http://www.directindustry.com/prod/hyundai-heavy-industries-diesel-power-plant/containerized-power-plants-55206-364058.html http://www.directindustry.com/prod/hyundai-heavy-industries-...

ck2 14y ago
How big is the fuel tank for 10 hour a day operation for a year? And how many fuel deliveries a week does it need? Here is a 47MW plant in Cuba using those generators, looks pretty big: http://engine.hhi.aramcnc.com/pplant/images/img02_02.jpg http://engine.hhi.aramcnc.com/pplant/images/img02_02.jpg
- marvin 14y ago
  A better comparison would be how much fuel it needs to run for 20 years. But it's still a relevant question. And if we're ever going to stop releasing large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, solar is one of the essential ways to get there. Solar is getting really cheap these days. It's very exciting.
  - jrabone 14y ago
    No.2 diesel oil consumption for a single 3.5MW genset is ~ 200 g/kW.h. Spot price for no.2 diesel oil is ~ $3 / US gallon ($3.50 for low sulphur). Density is ~ 920 kg/m^3, US gallon is 0.00378541 m^3, so running at rated capacity a single genset is: 700 kg / h 0.76 m^3 / h 201 US gallons / h (isn't that convenient?) $703 / h running on the good stuff $17k / day $123M for 20 years at today's spot price For a single genset. Call it $750M for a 20MW plant running continuously for 20 years. Feel free to factor in a prediction for rising cost of fuel oil. I pay over $9 per US gallon for premium diesel car fuel in the UK...
  - fafner 14y ago
    I don't think that photovoltaic is an essential step on a grid perspective. The production of PV cells costs a lot of energy, produces a lot of CO2 and requires a lot of nasty chemicals (zB HF). The prices are only cheap because of massive government subsidies and in the EU because of silly laws, that force grid operators to accept every bit of solar energy despite what the plan says. The best way would probably to invest in thorium and other modern nuclear technologies. But that's not desired. Waterpower is limited by nature. Currently the real alternative seems to be wind and depending on where you are solarthermal and geothermal. Especially massive offshore wind/wave plants. But all of this requires a restructuring of the power grid and massive pump-storage plants. And I don't think c2 was considering diesel as a future alternative but just trying to give an idea about the size requirements.
    - marvin 14y ago
      I agree that nuclear (thorium) is an option that should be reserached and developed, as should other nuclear options. But there is no silver bullet in energy. And solar cells are not cheap only because of government subsidies. This has been true for a long time, but the newest generation of solar cells are clearly profitable even without subsidies. In fact, the next generation of Chinese panels for US customers will only be _expensive_ because of protectionist import tariffs. See http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-reduce-solar-imports-by-45/ http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-....
hristov 14y ago
No it cannot. What you are linking is a video of using multiple shipping-container generators to form a single power plant. If you explore a bit you will see the brochure(0) for those container based diesel generators and it shows that each one of them produces from .6 to 1.7 MW depending on engine choice. So you will need around 12-30 of those depending on engine choice(1). You will also need fuel tanks, pipes, fire suppression equipment, electrical equipment access roads etc. Also you will need to space everything apart for fire safety, to prevent overheating and to prevent those diesels from breathing in each other's exhaust. So by the time you are done I would not be surprised if you require about as much space as the solar plant. And of course you will have a bunch diesel exhaust and a lot of noise, so even if you do get a smaller footprint, the land you save will be of very limited use. Solar plants have much better footprint than it seems, because they do not really impact the land around them. Most other types of power plants will have very significant impact on the land around them and therefore they effectively take up much more space than it seems. (0)- http://pdf.directindustry.com/pdf/hyundai-heavy-industries-diesel-power-plant/packaged-power-station/55206-48953-_3.html http://pdf.directindustry.com/pdf/hyundai-heavy-industries-d... (1) I know the video shows around five of them only, it seems the video has been cut off in the middle.
- wcoenen 14y ago
  Yes, I realized a while after posting that a 20 MW plant would produce way too much waste heat to fit in such a small volume. My bad. I couldn't get back in time to my comment to edit in a correction. My gut feeling is still that something is wrong if a 20 MW plant is called "massive". I'd expect a massive power plant to produce gigawatts, not a few megawatts. That's the feeling I tried to convey with my bad example.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    If you go to Germany you can see gigawatts of solar, they had a recent 22 GW peak, even though the largest single installation is only 91 MW - http://www.secondpagemedia.com/jadblog/2012/05/germany-nets-20-nuclear-power-plants-worth-of-solar-power/ http://www.secondpagemedia.com/jadblog/2012/05/germany-nets-...
  - 14y ago

by wcoenen 14y ago

ck2 14y ago

How big is the fuel tank for 10 hour a day operation for a year? And how many fuel deliveries a week does it need? Here is a 47MW plant in Cuba using those generators, looks pretty big: http://engine.hhi.aramcnc.com/pplant/images/img02_02.jpg http://engine.hhi.aramcnc.com/pplant/images/img02_02.jpg

marvin 14y ago
A better comparison would be how much fuel it needs to run for 20 years. But it's still a relevant question. And if we're ever going to stop releasing large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere, solar is one of the essential ways to get there. Solar is getting really cheap these days. It's very exciting.
- jrabone 14y ago
  No.2 diesel oil consumption for a single 3.5MW genset is ~ 200 g/kW.h. Spot price for no.2 diesel oil is ~ $3 / US gallon ($3.50 for low sulphur). Density is ~ 920 kg/m^3, US gallon is 0.00378541 m^3, so running at rated capacity a single genset is: 700 kg / h 0.76 m^3 / h 201 US gallons / h (isn't that convenient?) $703 / h running on the good stuff $17k / day $123M for 20 years at today's spot price For a single genset. Call it $750M for a 20MW plant running continuously for 20 years. Feel free to factor in a prediction for rising cost of fuel oil. I pay over $9 per US gallon for premium diesel car fuel in the UK...
- fafner 14y ago
  I don't think that photovoltaic is an essential step on a grid perspective. The production of PV cells costs a lot of energy, produces a lot of CO2 and requires a lot of nasty chemicals (zB HF). The prices are only cheap because of massive government subsidies and in the EU because of silly laws, that force grid operators to accept every bit of solar energy despite what the plan says. The best way would probably to invest in thorium and other modern nuclear technologies. But that's not desired. Waterpower is limited by nature. Currently the real alternative seems to be wind and depending on where you are solarthermal and geothermal. Especially massive offshore wind/wave plants. But all of this requires a restructuring of the power grid and massive pump-storage plants. And I don't think c2 was considering diesel as a future alternative but just trying to give an idea about the size requirements.
  - marvin 14y ago
    I agree that nuclear (thorium) is an option that should be reserached and developed, as should other nuclear options. But there is no silver bullet in energy. And solar cells are not cheap only because of government subsidies. This has been true for a long time, but the newest generation of solar cells are clearly profitable even without subsidies. In fact, the next generation of Chinese panels for US customers will only be _expensive_ because of protectionist import tariffs. See http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-reduce-solar-imports-by-45/ http://solartribune.com/2012-05-30-u-s-import-tariffs-could-....

hristov 14y ago

No it cannot. What you are linking is a video of using multiple shipping-container generators to form a single power plant. If you explore a bit you will see the brochure(0) for those container based diesel generators and it shows that each one of them produces from .6 to 1.7 MW depending on engine choice. So you will need around 12-30 of those depending on engine choice(1). You will also need fuel tanks, pipes, fire suppression equipment, electrical equipment access roads etc. Also you will need to space everything apart for fire safety, to prevent overheating and to prevent those diesels from breathing in each other's exhaust. So by the time you are done I would not be surprised if you require about as much space as the solar plant. And of course you will have a bunch diesel exhaust and a lot of noise, so even if you do get a smaller footprint, the land you save will be of very limited use. Solar plants have much better footprint than it seems, because they do not really impact the land around them. Most other types of power plants will have very significant impact on the land around them and therefore they effectively take up much more space than it seems. (0)- http://pdf.directindustry.com/pdf/hyundai-heavy-industries-diesel-power-plant/packaged-power-station/55206-48953-_3.html http://pdf.directindustry.com/pdf/hyundai-heavy-industries-d... (1) I know the video shows around five of them only, it seems the video has been cut off in the middle.

wcoenen 14y ago
Yes, I realized a while after posting that a 20 MW plant would produce way too much waste heat to fit in such a small volume. My bad. I couldn't get back in time to my comment to edit in a correction. My gut feeling is still that something is wrong if a 20 MW plant is called "massive". I'd expect a massive power plant to produce gigawatts, not a few megawatts. That's the feeling I tried to convey with my bad example.
- ktizo 14y ago
  If you go to Germany you can see gigawatts of solar, they had a recent 22 GW peak, even though the largest single installation is only 91 MW - http://www.secondpagemedia.com/jadblog/2012/05/germany-nets-20-nuclear-power-plants-worth-of-solar-power/ http://www.secondpagemedia.com/jadblog/2012/05/germany-nets-...
- 14y ago