Outrun Change

How to cope with the intermittent output from solar power plants during a solar eclipse? Turn off your air conditioning and sweat it out.

For one day in August the Ivanpah facility won’t be incinerating as many birds as usual, due to the solar eclipse. Photo by James Ulvog.

Yeah, turn up the a/c temp is what those of us in California should do during the solar eclipse on August 21, according to the CPUC. Sweat it out.

The eclipse will start about 9 a.m. and hit maximum sun coverage about 10:20, with full sun resuming about 11:54 a.m.

Two issues. That is the front end of peak solar production during the day and August 21 is likely to be a hot day. That means output from solar plants will be lower than usual while demand for electricity will likely be higher than usual.

Drop in amount of sunlight is expected to be about 62% in SoCal, around 76% in northern part of state.

During the eclipse, about two-thirds of the solar production will be lost at the time of day when about 40% of our electricity comes from solar plants. Using those numbers means we will lose about 27% of our electricity production during that three hour time frame.

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Additional issues at Ivanpah: melting the salt and high winds

Production possible only when there is no rain, or clouds, and if the wind isn’t blowing too strong. Tilt angle photo by James Ulvog.

In my learning about energy, I’ve picked up on a few more problems with concentrated solar power, which is the design of the wing-toasting facility at Ivanpah.

Keeping the molten salt melted

All those mirrors focus the sun on the top of the tower in order to superheat a liquid, which is then circulated to turbines, which spin, thus generating electricity. The liquid returns to the top of the tower for another superheating.

The liquid?

Molten salt.

The melting temperature of molten salt is in the range of 225° C or perhaps 260° C. Of course my accounting brain doesn’t think Celsius, so I translated those numbers, coming up with something in the range of 437° F or 500° F. Let’s just call that 400°.

My accounting brain can tell that is really hot.

Another thing I have learned is that once the sun goes down the molten salt is allowed to freeze. It would take a lot of energy to keep that much salt over 400 so that it stayed liquid. That means in the morning it is either sludge or solid and needs to be heated above the melting point so it will work.

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More news on the damage from solar power

For those panels to pay off, you are betting the regulators will keep rules in place for a decade or two. Not a particularly good bet. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

Two articles last week on disruptions from solar power. Illustration why it’s not wise to make it decade-long bet on residential rooftop solar. Also, a video surveillance system that might, perhaps allow getting an accurate count on the tally of bird deaths at Ivanpah.

7/26 – New York Times – Why Home Solar Panels No Longer in Some States – Friendly suggestion for your consideration: Don’t place $20,000 on a 12 year bet that politically driven government regulators won’t change the rules.

The story of one specific man in California is used to illustrate the danger of betting on stability in government rules.

In California, electricity rates have been structured so that there are four tiers of consumption. To punish heavy residential electricity users, prices in tiers three and four are steep, running as high as $.36 a kilowatt-hour for tier 4 with PG&E. To protect most folks from rising cost of electricity the lower two tiers were set low, resulting in a cross-subsidy. Read more…

Ivanpah wing toasting facility toasts Ivanpah wing toasting facility

Ivanpah facility toasted itself instead of birds on Thursday. Photo by James Ulvog.

The solar facility that typically sets birds on fire scored itself big time on Thursday.

One of the solar collecting towers at Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System had a fire about two-thirds of the way up the tower. Early reports indicate some of the garage-door sized mirrors were misaligned and focused the searing heat on the middle part of tower instead of the collector. The heat reportedly started a number of electrical cables on fire.

The solar generator set itself on fire instead of setting birds on fire which generates visible streamers. Those are birds started on fire and falling to the ground streaming smoke.

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Ivanpah gets a reprieve

Low output, high cost, bird-killing, natural gas guzzling solar project has another year to hit contracted output requirements. Photo by James Ulvog.

Mentioned yesterday that the Ivanpah wing-toaster facility was in danger of having to close because it wasn’t producing enough electricity.

The plant owners can breathe easier. The Press Enterprise reports on 3/17: PUC gives Ivanpah plant operators more time to increase output.

In what looks to be a contract dispute, PG&E pointed out Ivanpah plant wasn’t delivering the contractually required amount of electricity and therefore was in violation of some state rules or regulations or something.

That meant Ivanpah needed special dispensation to continue operations. On Thursday, the state gave that permission.

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Update on devastation from wind and solar power. Catching up on backlog of articles.

Only one of the three Ivanpah towers is burning the wings off birds at the moment this picture was taken in 2013. Photo by James Ulvog.

I have a plethora of articles on the wide range of economic, environmental, and biological harm caused by wind and solar power. Will try to get caught up. So much devastation. So little time.

3/2/15 – Coyote Blog – New Business Opportunity: Lolo’s Eagle and Waffles Next to Large Solar Plants – Post points to the following two articles. Those articles plus this headline suggest that if the solar plants can get away with killing eagles and other federally protected migratory birds, then perhaps there is a business opportunity from serving up the carcasses as exotic dishes at a nearby café.

2/18/15 – ReWire – Scores of Birds Killed During Test of The Project in Nevada – During a test on 1/14/15 at the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project outside Tonopah, Nevada, federal biologists counted 130 streamers.

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Why solar-thermal farms are accurately called wing-toasters – Ivahpah offs an estimated 3,500 birds a year.

(Wing toaster portion of a wing-toasting facility in operation. Top of the tower is where the protected, migratory, and other birds get cooked. The white-hot section is around 750 degrees. Photo by James Ulvog.)

A detailed study of bird casualties estimates the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System kills about 3,500 birds a year. This is while it is only generating at 40% of expected capacity.

4/22 – Chris Clarke at ReWire – Solar Plant Likely Killed 3,500 Birds in 1st Year – The Ivanpah facility hired a firm to research the number of birds killed at the location. The number of fatalities is in a range between 2,500 and 6,700 with a point estimate of 3,504.

That is a range of 6.8 to 18.4 per day with point estimate of 9.6 each and every day.

That is in contrast to the facility’s biologist’s official count of 695 dead and eight injured birds. That would be an average of 1.9 casualties each day. Read more…

Ivanpah running at 40% of expected output while killing about 3,500 birds a year

(Photo of Ivanpah wing-toasting tower in operation. Photo by James Ulvog.)

The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System next to I-15 just south of the California-Nevada border is only generating 40% of the expected electricity while at the same time killing a lot more birds than officially reported.

6/12 – Wall Street Journal – High-Tech Solar Projects Fail to Deliver / $2.2 billion California project generates 40% of expected electricity – The Ivanpah solar-thermal plant in the Mojave Desert has been open 15 months. I think it was in testing for several months before that.

It was supposed to deliver over 1 million mWh a year but is only running at 40% of that level according to the article.

Article says offered causes include a lot of equipment breaking (even though it is only around 18 months old). They are still working their way down the learning curve with plenty of on-the-job learning on how to run the plant.

As I’ve mentioned before, they were planning to use natural gas to run the facility for an hour a day to get it going before the sun power really kicks in. They are having to use four times as much natural gas to get the plant started in the morning.

Most entertaining excuse offered for poor results is there’s not enough sun. In the Mojave Desert.

For the last 15 months it’s been more cloudy than expected.

In the Mojave Desert.

For 15 months straight.

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Ivanpah update – solar #32

The huge collecting solar power plant in the California desert near the Nevada border, Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, is in distress as an energy producer and as a business deal.

Output in the first eight months of operation is about one-third of what was expected.

Project negotiated a delay of its first two loan payments and is requesting federal grants to pick up the tab for those payments plus one more.

In the accounting world when a borrower doesn’t make payments in accordance with the original loan agreement it is called a troubled debt restructuring. In finance that is called a workout. In banking that is an impaired loan. In politics and the media world we call that a bailout.

9/23 – Wall Street Journal – Ivanpah Solar Project Owners Delay Repaying Loans, Documents Say – NRG, Google, BrightSource Said to Delay Paying Back Loans – Project was built with a $1.6B guaranteed loan as part of the total reported price tag of $2.2B.

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Does the Ivanpah solar facility toast 642 or 28,000 birds a year? Solar #24

(Photo by James Ulvog)

Officials from Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System report there were 321 dead birds found on the site in the first six months of operation. Annualizing that would imply 642 birds will die each year at the facility shown above.

Is that the total of birds killed at the site? Let me ask you a few questions.

• Is the total number of drunk drivers on the road determined by looking at the official FBI statistics on DUI arrests?
• Is the extent of insider trading equal to the number of SEC enforcement actions filed?
• Is the total amount of criminal behavior leading up to the 2008 great recession equal to the number of criminal indictments issued by the Justice Department (which is zero if you didn’t know)?

If you answered yes to all of those three questions then you will certainly agree that the grand total of birds killed at Ivanpah is limited to the reported amount of 321 in six months, or around 600 a year.

On the other hand, if you think the number of drunk drivers is greater than the number arrested or if you believe there is actually more insider trading going on than the SEC prosecutes, then the question is to what extent are the toasted wings undercounted at Ivanpah.

Causes of undercount

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