ESolar To Branch Into Module Molten Salt Plants

July 6, 2010

Solar thermal has been hot lately (pardon the pun).

This weekend, President Obama doled out $1.45 billion in loan guarantees for Abengoa’s 250 MW, molten-salt farm in Gila Bend, Arizona. Two months earlier, the Department of Energy dispatched another $62 million for technology development and component design.

Among the winners of the DOE award were Pratt & Whitney’s Rocketdyne, Abengoa and eSolar – which finally last week elaborated on the project it has underway with Babcock & Wilcox.  The two companies will use $10.8 million in funding to build and test modular plant components, including a molten-salt receiver, a molten salt to steam heat exchanger and a molten-salt storage system.

The move to molten salt is new direction for eSolar, which up to now has relied on directly heating water to produce steam. The funding will “accelerate the research and development of (the) economic storage” of solar thermal power generation capacity to extend the operating range of plants, says eSolar CEO John Van Scoter.

But despite the new funding, all is not well in the industry. Falling photovoltaic prices pressure plant development at a time when vendors struggle to find financing for a new generation of tower-oriented farms.

These pressures already resulted in the cancellation of two eSolar project, according to a published reports, including one on Green Wombat. PG&E decided to scale back the Alpine SunTower farm in California and replace eSolar’s field of heliostats with PV panels.

A second New Mexico facility where El Paso Electric is to receive power also is switching to PV.

ESolar and partner NRG Energy said in a statement that downsizing the California plant from 92 MW to 66 MW was the result of limited transmission capacity at the site.

But more than transmission, the challenge for solar-thermal developers is low-cost solar panels. PV prices fell sharply last year, and plant financing has become easier. Perhaps the DOE recognized this with its May funding awards urging the developing of lower cost solar thermal technology. According to eSolar, the goal of its work with Babcock and Wilcox will be to achieve the lowest levelized electricity cost of any utility scale solar thermal plant.

That means allowing plant components to be built in a factory and shipped fully assembled to a site. This will simplify permitting and construction.

The completion of the work with Babcock & Wilcox is 2.5 years away. Seems as if there is no time to waste.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Solar The Contrary View; BrightSource, Too

May 20, 2010

Many analysts anticipate a solar market slump later this year after the world’s largest market, Germany, cuts its feed-in tariffs.

But not all. In fact, at least one is predicting a surprising up-tick in the market this year and next. Apparently, some vendors agree.

Solar termal company BrightSource raises $150 million to build 14 plants in the Southwest.

On Thursday, BrightSource Energy, a builder of large solar thermal power plants, said it raised an additional $150 million in financing. This brings its recently concluded series D round to $300 million.

The company plans to use the money to build 14 solar plants in the Southwest United States by 2016 for California utilities Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison.

The towering round underscores the notion that solar is on a long-term vector of expansion. This vector also could be in place for the short term.

German consumers are presently in a rush to add rooftop solar ahead of the July cut, expected to be 16 percent or so. But the surge of installations should continue in the second half of the year, forecasts Henning Wicht, principal analyst at iSuppli.

Wicht on Thursday said he sees German installations rising 71 percent this year to 6.6 GW and then climbing another 44% next year to 9.5GW.

Third quarter activity will slow following the tariff reduction, but the fourth quarter will be busy again before another cut in 2011.

In the same vein, France and Italy face feed-in tariff cuts of their own in 2011. Consumers may rush to put in equipment ahead of the deadline.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Solar Costs Will Match Coal In 10 Years, Pessimistic Study Says

May 11, 2010

Solar energy will provide 11 percent of the world’s electricity by 2050. Solar thermal farms will provide another 11.3 percent, according to the International Energy Agency, the agency that advises the European Union on energy issues.

Together, the two technologies will generate almost a quarter of global electricity demand and reduce “gigatonnes” of CO2 emissions each year.

But the conversation to solar energy may be slower than the industry presently projects. According to a pair of IEA studies released Tuesday, solar energy won’t match the cost of oil and coal for as long as 10 years. Industry leaders at the most aggressive solar manufacturers say so-called price “parity” could come in two or three.

This pessimistic account assumes a slower drop in the costs of solar manufacturing and power generation. For photovoltaic systems, the fall should be about 50 percent over the decade as the amount of solar in use grows five fold.

While this seems hard to imagine given that solar cell prices fell 40 percent last year due to the recession and over production, a benign environment is what the IEA says is likely. The only exception is where the sun’s intensity is greatest, and in those spots solar will reach parity by 2015.

The report estimates generation costs for commercial photovoltaic systems will range from 13 cents to 26 cents a kWh by 2020. Residential costs should be 16 cents to 31 cents a kWh. This should equal costs from burning fossil fuels.

Costs at large-scale solar farms could drop as low as 10 cents, making them competitive with the wholesale power costs at the time.

The study says solar thermal is on a similar trajectory. Costs will be competitive with base-load power coming form coal plants by 2020.

The study forecasts that by 2020, the volume of residential solar will be 2.4 times greater than big utility-scale solar farms, not including solar thermal farms, and 5 times greater than solar installed on warehouses and commercial buildings.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

Fast Tract Patent Program For Clean Tech Bearing Some Fruit

May 7, 2010

The Patent and Trademark Office put in place a pilot program late last year to accelerate the issuance of clean-tech patents. It appears to be experiencing some success.

Since December, 943 companies have applied to be part of the green-tech patent program

Since the effort began in December, 943 companies have asked that their patent applications to be considered for this fast-track review – roughly six a day. The patent office granted 335 of these requests. Figures on patent approvals weren’t immediately available.

But anecdotally, some companies have found the processes useful. One is Skyline Solar of Mountain View, CA, which announced on Thursday it received a patent covering its solar thermal technology.

The company uses reflective rectangular sheets of metal to concentrate the sun’s rays on inexpensive thin-film solar cells. The technique allows less efficient thin film to match the performance of more efficient polysilicon cells, the company claims.

The patent was approved in slightly more than two months after the Skyline Solar was accepted into the program. Many traditional patents take a year or more to approve.

The company said in a press release that it was one of the first firms to be awarded a patent under the pilot program.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

BrightSource Wins $1.37B In Federal Loan Guarantees For Massive California Solar Plant

February 22, 2010

Days after scaling back a massive Mojave Desert solar plant, BrightSource said Monday it won $1.37 billion in Energy Department loan guarantees for the project.

The planned 392 MW Ivanpah solar thermal plant is among the world’s largest, with 3,500 acres of mirror arrays on three separate sites concentrating solar heat for steam generators. It is expected to nearly double the amount of solar thermal generation power generation in the U.S.

The loan guarantees, still subject to negotiation, should help BrightSource obtain financing for construction. The guarantees provide vital support for project, noted Peter Darbee, CEO of PG&E, which will purchase about two-thirds of the electricity generated by Ivanpah.

Ivanpah Valley in southern California could be the site of one of the world's larges solar plants

The plant is a key first step toward California’s ambitious renewable energy target. The state has mandated that a third of its power come from renewables by 2020.

It also appeared to spark interest in neighboring Nevada for similar solar thermal plants. “I look forward to BrightSource and other solar companies putting more Nevadans to work by building major projects like this sin Nevada very soon,” said Senator Harry Reid.

In a press release, BrightSource reaffirmed its intention to begin construction in the second half of 2010, with San Francisco-based Bechtel serving as construction engineers. The project is using soalr-powered steam turbines from Siemens on the first of the three sites. One thousand construction jobs are expected to be created.

Ten days ago, BrightSource said it would scale back the overall “footprint” to the sprawling facility by 12 percent. Environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, had worried the plant would curtail habitat for an endangered desert tortoise.

The number of towers, which collect heat from the ground mounted mirrors, were cut to three from seven.

The project is one of small number of fast-track plants earmarked by the Department of the Interior. It would be the first solar plant built in California in two decades.

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Posted by Mark Boslet

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