Desert solar Plants

In this page I decided to address the large Desert Solar Electric Generation Plants in California.  The US now intends to fill the Deserts with Solar Electric Generation Plants. These plants have relatively large capacity ratings and will be placed at various locations in the California desert. I suspect that some  will not get funded.

Albert Gore says we have enough solar, wind, and geothermal  energy systems to supply the nations need of energy. So the solar plants offered below are a start. But a start to what? I submit,  it will be a start of the proof that solar plants will not do the job. And it will take another ten years to prove it.  The low capacity factor of these plants and the failure of many will prove it. So let's get started.

A 4,000-acre solar power project in San Bernardino County, California, is facing opposition from county officials and environmental groups, the San Bernardino Sun reports.

The Ivanpah Valley solar development would produce up to 440 megawatts of electricity through solar thermal technology, where mirrors reflect sunlight on a liquid-filled tower to make steam. The project would offset 450,000 tons of carbon emissions per year, says developer BrightSource Energy, but not everyone is thrilled about its environmental benefits.

County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt is trying to derail Ivanpah Valley because it is sited in desert tortoise territory in the Mojave Desert. Endangered plant species would be threatened, too.

BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs suggests that the development "will generate 1,000 jobs, $250 million in wages and more that $400 million in local and state tax revenue." But Mitzelfelt counters that most of those jobs would go to the Las Vegas area and most of the electricity would be sent to San Francisco.

"There are better places to put solar energy," says Eldon Hughes of the San Gorgonio chapter of the Sierra Club.
My comment: But not in my back yard

Water in the Desert is a scarce commodity.

NextEra wants to tap freshwater wells to supply the 521 million gallons of cooling water the plant, the Beacon Solar Energy Project, would consume in a year, despite a state policy against the use of drinking-quality water for power plant cooling.

Mike Edminston, a city council member from nearby California City, warned at a hearing that groundwater recharge was already “not keeping up with the utilization we have.”

Well the solar plants need water to clean the solar concentrating panels and to condense  the steam. Looks like a show stopper for these units. Filling the desert with solar electric generating  systems has serious difficulties. 

The huge nuclear generating plants in the Arizona Deserts use dry cooling towers to condense the steam and do not need water to keep solar concentrating  panels clean.

Feinstein Seeks to Block Solar Power From Desert Land

Sen. Feinstein Seeks Monument Status To Keep Solar, Wind Projects Off 500,000 Mojave Acres

Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on a parcel of 500,000 desert acres, but Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Friday such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public.

Feinstein said she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

Battle Brewing Over Giant Desert Solar Farm

U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Environmental groups are worried that a massive solar project in the Mojave will threaten protected wildlife, like this fringe-toed lizard.

Tessera Solar plans to plant 34,000 solar dishes — each one 40 feet high and 38 feet wide — on 8,230 acres of the Mojave Desert in Southern California.

Although the lengthy licensing process for the Calico solar farm remains in the early stages, several environmental groups are already raising red flags about the massive project’s impact on such protected wildlife as the desert tortoise, the Mojave fringe-toed lizard and Nelson’s bighorn sheep.

Calico is one of dozens of industrial-scale solar farms planned for the Southwest that have divided environmentalists over the need to promote renewable energy while protecting fragile desert ecosystems.

But the sheer size of the Calico project, as well as its location next to federal conservation areas, is drawing scrutiny from grassroots green activists and national organizations like the Defenders of Wildlife.

The solar farm would generate 850 megawatts of electricity for Southern California Edison.

Also jumping into the fray is a well-funded labor group that is pressing solar developers to employ union workers, and the Wildlands Conservancy, a Southern California non-profit that supports a proposal by Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, to ban renewable energy development on hundreds of thousands of acres of the Mojave adjacent to Calico.

.“Our feeling is the utility-scale project should first be sited on disturbed land, public or private, instead of pristine lands,” April Sall, the conservation director for the Wildlands Conservancy, told California Energy Commission staff at a recent hearing on the Calico project. “There are several endangered species, plant and animal, that would be affected by this project,” Ms. Sall said, adding that the “the side-blotched lizard” might also affected.

The labor group, called California Unions for Reliable Energy, sent an attorney and biologist to testify at the hearing. The group has come under fire for inundating developers who decline to sign labor agreements with demands that they conduct scores of costly environmental studies on their solar projects.

California Unions for Reliable Energy has taken a particularly aggressive stance in the Calico case, dispatching its own biologist to investigate the project site. At the hearing, the biologist, Scott Cashen, accused Tessera Solar of providing scientifically invalid data in its license application as well as underestimating the solar farm’s consequences for wildlife.

“Our concerns basically revolve around the lack of any sort of scientific rigor that was devoted to establishing base line conditions at the site,” Mr. Cashen said.

Sean Gallagher, Tessera Solar’s vice president for market strategy and regulatory affairs, said in an interview on Tuesday that the company has followed regulators’ scientific protocols in preparing its license application.

Mr. Gallagher said he has been in discussions with the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and other environmental groups and expects Tessera Solar will be able to address their wildlife concerns.

“I’m not surprised there’s a lot of interest from environmentalists given the size of the project, but I don’t expect this to turn into a big fight,” Mr. Gallagher said.

Tessera Solar, which is based in Houston, stresses that its SunCatcher solar dish is more environmentally friendly than other solar thermal technologies, consuming less water and requiring no grading of the desert.

And while the company acknowledged in its license application that the project would have “significant” impact on the desert tortoise and other plant and animal species, it also concluded that measures taken to minimize its environmental impact means that Calico “would not substantially affect, reduce the number of, or restrict the range of unique, rare, or endangered species of animal or plant, or the habitat of these species.”  

Comments from those who live in the deserts.  Water is a short commodity

We have a challenge in finding water even though we’re low water use,” said Sean Gallagher, a Tessera executive. “It forces you to do some creative deals.”

In the Amargosa Valley, Solar Millennium may have to negotiate access to water with scores of individuals and companies who own the right to stick a straw in the aquifer, so to speak, and withdraw a prescribed amount of water each year.

“There are a lot of people out here for whom their water rights are their life savings, their retirement,” said Ed Goedhart, a local farmer and state legislator, as he drove past pockets of sun-beaten mobile homes and luminescent patches of irrigated alfalfa. Farmers will be growing less of the crop, he said, if they decide to sell their water rights to Solar Millennium.

“We’ll be growing megawatts instead of alfalfa,” Mr. Goedhart said.

While water is particularly scarce in the West, it is becoming a problem all over the country as the population grows. Daniel M. Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley, predicted that as intensive renewable energy development spreads, water issues will follow.

“When we start getting 20 percent, 30 percent or 40 percent of our power from renewables,” Mr. Kammen said, “water will be a key issue.”

BrightSource has pulled put of the race. It is too much trouble to get land in California for such projects. Dianne Feinstein is winning this race to save the desert. Others will probably withdraw also. At the present time only one desert plant is being built and it is a very small system of only 177 MWe capacity.

- Solar thermal company BrightSource Inc has dropped plans to build a solar power plant in the Mojave Desert, losing a battle with environmentalists and a U.S. senator who want to preserve the surrounding area.

Privately held BrightSource had applied with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to build a 500-megawatt solar thermal power plant at the Broadwell Dry Lake area in California.

This is what Repower America has to say about solar plants.

Solar Thermal Power: Concentrated solar thermal power systems, also known as solar thermal power, covering a parcel of land fewer than 100 miles on a side in the Southwest could theoretically supply 100% of America’s electricity needs. A proven technology just beginning to scale up in the US, solar thermal power already produces enough electricity for about 100,000 homes and large-scale projects by eight different companies are underway with major utilities to power 10 times that many homes in the next three years. Industry engineers project that plants put into operation after 2013 – and perhaps sooner – will come equipped with 6-8 hours of energy storage, allowing them to continue to provide power after the sun goes down.

My comment: I can find only 177 MWe of solar plant capacity  now under construction. Also major utilities are not  putting a dime into solar plants. Independent financial organizations are trying to get financing for solar plants, but are not too successful yet. The money may never come unless President Obama gets the Government to supply it.

The area of the solar concentrating panels currently configured for the desert electric energy systems are all deficient. in the collector capacity. The solar  panels  only provide enough panel surface area to allow the electric energy systems to operate only while the sun shines during the day.  They all have capacity factors of about 20%.  This is a gross mistake.  It is often said that enough sun falls on the earth's surface to supply all of our country's energy needs. Why do we configure solar panels surface area  to supply only enough sun's heat to operate the electric energy systems at capacity factors of only 20%.   It would be a very easy to provide enough solar panels to heat a fluid and store it to  provide enough steam to allow the power- electric plants  to operate on a  24/7 basis. The current  solar panels surface area will never supply sufficient  electric energy to meet the State's  goal of  supplying  33% renewable electric energy

Here is a classic example of what I am and talking about. They think that this huge solar power plant is going to operate at a capacity factor of 30%. (I think the actual capacity factor will be closer to 20?)  But at any rate  there is not enough solar collector surface to make this plant worth while. They should construct enough solar collectors to operate on a  24/7 basis. They would then get about 11 billion kilowatt hours per year. I do not think this plant will produce an economical amount of electric energy per year.

Southern California Edison and BrightSource Energy Sign World's Largest Solar Deal Agreement for 1,300 Megawatts of Clean and Reliable Solar Thermal Power

ROSEMEAD, Calif., Feb 11, 2009 -- BUSINESS WIRE  

Southern California Edison (SCE) and BrightSource Energy have reached agreement on a series of contracts for 1,300 megawatts of clean solar thermal power.  The full 1,300 megawatts of projects will produce 3.7 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy per year.

Below is the table of the current status of the proposed  solar  projects in California deserts.

Solar Projects Currently Under Review by Energy Commission and BLM Arranged by Date Application For Certification Was Filed

Most of the proposed utility-scale solar plants are slated for San Bernardino and Riverside counties, where vast deserts offer abundant xsunshine and plenty of open space for the behemoths. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is juggling so many requests from companies looking to build on federal land -- 79 at last count, covering more than 690,000 acres -- that it had to stop accepting applications for a few weeks last summer. Many of these facilities may never get built. Environmentalists are mobilizing. U.S. credit markets are in a deep freeze.

What! Environmentalists  are against solar plants? And the capital cost? I have no idea who would pony up the money to pay for these turkeys..

Solar Stirling System under way.

While the CEC still needs to approve these projects, Stirling is at least a few steps closer to starting construction of the solar plants. If Solar One is approved, construction is supposed to start in late 2010 and take 40 months to complete, while construction of Solar Two could start in late 2009 or early 2010 and could also take around 40 months to complete. Solar One would be built on 8,230 acres of land in San Bernardino County, Calif., use 30,000, 25-kilowatt solar dishes, and will sell power to California utility Southern California Edison. Solar Two will use 6,500 acres of land in Imperial County, Calif., 30,000 25-kilowatt solar dishes and sell power to San Diego Gas & Electric.  ( They do not sell power, they sell energy if there is any. And the utilities do not put in a dime for the capital cost. )

In April Phoenix-based Stirling raised $100 million from Dublin, Ireland’s NTR, and in the process NTR took a 52-percent stake in the company, according to the Cleantech Group. Stirling’s technology, unlike most of the utility-scale solar providers, uses a combination of solar thermal concentration devices and engines to produce clean power.

My Comments: This total system involves  60,000 individual solar Sterling engines and a land mass of 14,730 acres. About 3 billion dollars should be enough to buy the engines. The land cost is another item. I cannot guess who would pony up that much money, but we will see.

Arizona has selected the parabolic reflectors with an intermediate heat transfer fluid, similar to the existing system at Kramer's Junction.   This is the only solar-electric generating  system that has been successfully in California.  I believe that those building solar plants in the California desert will be sorry they  too did not select the parabolic reflector system  with an intermediate heat transfer fluid.                          .

APS Announces New Solar Power Plant, Among World’s Largest

Power Station Will Provide Renewable Electricity to About 70,000 APS Customers

PHOENIX--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) today announced plans for one of the world’s largest solar facilities – a 280-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, Arizona.

Brandt said APS chose Abengoa Solar because of its extensive experience

Parabolic mirrors track the sun and focus solar energy on a heat transfer fluid. Once heated, the liquid converts water into steam, which turns the plant’s turbines to create electricity. This technology allows the plant to produce more energy for customers than a traditional solar power plant which only produces electricity when exposed to direct sunlight.

The California Environmental Quality Act requires special emphasis should be placed on environmental resources. I wonder how this racks up with the need for copious amounts of water to keep the panels clear? 

(c) Knowledge of the regional setting is critical to the assessment of environmental impacts. Special emphasis should be placed on environmental resources that are rare or unique to that region and would be affected by the project. The EIR must demonstrate that the significant environmental impacts of the proposed project were adequately investigated and discussed and it must permit the significant effects of the project to be considered in the full environmental context

Apparently Solel has bought the parabolic Mirror system at  Kramer's junction and intends to build  a giant new solar plant in the Mojave Desert.

Solel Inc. is developing the 553 MW Mojave Solar Park 1 (MSP-1), the world's largest solar thermal power plant, in California's Mojave Desert.  In July 2007, Solel Inc. concluded a 25 year Power Purchase Agreement with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) to provide it with electricity from MSP-1.  Solel will build MSP-1 using Solel 6, Solel's industry leading solar thermal collector.   MSP-1 will encompass nine square miles and will provide PG&E with 1,388 gigawatts of energy annually at a price competitive with plants powered by fossil fuels.

Of all of the desert solar system, I think this one has the best chance of succeeding. The reason for this is due to the fact that the solar  panels heat a heat transfer fluid in tubes running through the parabolic reflectors. The fluid is then stored in a large tank and is pumped to a shell and tube stream generator that heats water to steam for the turbine. This intermediate heat transfer fluid allows the system to carry out a more controlled heat balance of the power plant system.

In a  feasibility study performed by the Electric Power Research Institute  (EPRI) found that the most feasible solar technology system currently available for a large scale plant is the parabolic trough.

My comment: I agree  with the above statement. I think the reason for this is due to the use of an intermediate heat transfer  fluid.  The parabolic trough heats this fluid which  then goes into a holding tank. The thermal properties of the fluid in the holding tank are well known. This fluid is then pumped into the shell side of the steam generator to heat the feedwater coming for the Rankine cycle  of the power plant. This makes it possible to  have well known hot  fluid thermal conditions at the inlet to the steam generator. This provides good control heat balance  over the process of generating the steam conditions going to the turbine.  Generating steam is not a simple process. It requires well known conditions of the heating process and feed water inlet parameters.

The above reasons are why  I think the Tower Power and Fresnel Panel systems will not be as successful as the parabolic trough systems.

Moreover, the Parabolic Trough system is the only  a proven system in California over the last thirty years. The Tower Power system at Daggett California was a dismal failure and it was abandoned.

At  Kramer Junction, California, there is  a solar installation called SEGS (Solar Electric Generating System, built by LUZ International), of which there are nine units. SEGS uses an array of parabolic mirrors (see picture), laid out on north-south axes to concentrate reflected sunlight onto a black tube through which therminol flows. The solar-trough array at Kramer Junction, California.

The shiny surfaces focus sunlight onto the black tubes that run along the array. The therminol fluid, thus heated, is pumped to a heat exchanger where it is used to boil water for a (Rankine) steam cycle system. As the sun moves from east to west, the reflectors rotate so as to keep facing the sun. 

To operate at peak efficiency the mirrors are pressure washed every ten to twenty days. If you want a full explanation and analysis of the SEGS system go to the NREL.com site. But be careful they are, in my opinion too optimist about the future of this concept. Also they are not too free on relating the capacity factors of the system. Low capacity factors are the bane of renewable  energy systems. The capacity factor of the SEGS plant when operating on solar energy alone is only 25 percent.

It appears that the parabolic trough  system has been adopted as the favorite for concentrating solar plants. Below is a recent announcement for such a plant being built in Nevada

Assembly of the parabolic-trough system components is underway for a 64-Megawatt Nevada plant, which will generate enough electricity to power about 11,000 homes.

Here is what what the Department of Energy Thinks about the trough system.

 Trough systems are commercially available and in use today. However, because of the very low cost of today's fossil fuels, they cannot yet compete on a cost-of-electricity basis with fossil-based systems,. A favorable financing arrangement—one likely to be stimulated by green power markets—could enable parabolic troughs to begin to play a role in the marketplace, however. And as global demand for clean energy sources rises, trough systems will become more financially attractive.

The Linear Fresnel Reflector solar System

The Carrizo Energy Company intends to construct a 177 MWe Linear Fresnel Reflector System in  San Luis Obispo County, California.  PG&E has contracted to take the energy from this system. 

It should be noted that PG&E is not putting any money in this venture. They are only taking the electric energy if any is ever produced. This is necessary due to the CPUC forcing  PG&E  to go green.

The Project design will incorporate Ausra's proprietary CLFR technology to concentrate solar energy on tubes in an elevated receiver. The concentrated solar energy boils water within a row of specially coated stainless steel tubes in an insulated cavity to produce saturated steam. The steam produced in the receivers is collected in a series of pipes, routed to steam drums, and then to the two turbine generators. Steam used by the steam turbines is condensed back to water and returned to the solar field. The advantage of this design is that lenses are cheaper than mirrors. Furthermore, if a material is chosen that has some flexibility, then a less rigid frame is required to withstand wind load

Prototypes of Fresnel lenses concentrators have been produced for the collection of thermal energy by International Automated Systems. No full-scale thermal systems using Fresnel lenses are known to be in operation.

Ausra, which manufactures equipment for solar-thermal power plants, has secured $30 million in venture debt and is negotiating for an "add-on" round of $15 million from original investors Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, according to a company executive.

My comments: It is commendable that two organizations would pony up $45 million dollars for this project. Lets follow it to see how they come out. they must need another $300,000,000 to complete th 177,000 kWe solar system.

  It seems to me that the panels on the desert floor  are so close together that power washing them will be very difficult. Also stainless steel tubes are selected as the tube material to receive the sun's energy and  heat the steam-water in the over  head  Fresnel tubes arranged horizontally.  In the US we do not use stainless steel to receive heat  and transport  steam- water mixtures because stainless steel cannot withstand impurities such as caustics in the water-steam  systems.

I think they should have arranged the tubes in a vertical direction  with  the down comer tubes in the center and  the heated tubes around the out side and also he seam drums at the top.   This would provide a natural circulation steam-water system  and it does not require multiple steam drums in series. And they could control the water level tin the steam  drums.

I cannot envision what kind of heat transfer-heat balance they will get with the steam water mixture flowing horizontally  in the tubes. Boiling water is not a simple matter. I wonder what kind of steam quality mixture they will get at the end of the Fresnel tubes? But the saturated steam going the turbine is a good idea and the only way this system has a chance of working. And at the beginning and  and end of the daily cycle they may not get any steam at all.

Well I have given them a lot of free advice.  They will not listen to it anyway. The folks  at Daggett did not listen either and it was a total failure. Where is the NREL when we need them? They should weigh in on these matters also.  PG&E does not care.  They do not have to pay  dime for the system. They pay only for the energy if they ever get any.

Financial Backer of this project.

Khosla is an Indian-American venture capitalist. He is an influential personality in Silicon Valley. He was one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and became a general partner of the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers in 1986. Knosla may be a lot poorer when this is over.

The company is in discussions for another 1,000 megawatts of production and has another 6,000 megawatts "in the pipeline," Davis said. He said electricity from its system is 30 percent to 40 percent cheaper than solar-photovoltaic plants and equivalent in price to natural-gas power plants with the 30 percent tax credit that renewable-energy projects get.  (And these solar plants with their 20% capacity factors will offer electric energy for the same price as nuclear plants?)

Here is a blurb abut the Fresnel solar system.  No experience yet, but system is being  tried in Spain.  

To date there has been no experience of using Fresnel collectors under actual operating conditions. In order to ensure and prove that this technology is ready for use in later commercial plants, we decided to build a complete demonstration plant - the same size as a collector module, which would be used in a solar power station. In this way the Fresnel design concept can be validated in an experiment. Reliable figures and data are essential to examine the very promising future of the technology and therefore confidence with customers and investors in the new technology. The technology should be ready for market by 2008 in large-scale

Tokyo Electric to build solar plant in California: report

TOKYO (AFP) –- Tokyo Electric Power Co. will build a solar power plant in the U.S. state of California through its subsidiary Eurus Energy Holdings Corp., according to a report.

It plans to begin operations at the 1000 kilowatt plant by 2010 on a site yet to be selected, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Eurus, already engaged in wind power generation in the United States, wants to take advantage of incentives expected to be provided by the new U.S. government to boost solar power generation nationwide, Nikkei said.

Tokyo Electric is one of four Japanese corporate giants moving into the U.S. renewable energy market with solar and wind power technologies, the daily said.

In anticipation of growing U.S. demand, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will raise its domestic production capacity for wind turbines by about 30 percent to 1.6 million kilowatts possibly by March 2010, Nikkei said.

The 787-billion-dollar U.S. economic stimulus package, which was passed on Tuesday, earmarks 38 billion dollars for investments in the environmental  energy sectors.

 Is Obama dumb enough to bank roll these desert solar turkeys?

 Tokyo Electric to build solar plant in California: report

TOKYO (AFP) –- Tokyo Electric Power Co. will build a solar power plant in the U.S. state of California through its subsidiary Eurus Energy Holdings Corp., according to a report.

It plans to begin operations at the 1000 kilowatt plant by 2010 on a site yet to be selected, the Nikkei business daily reported.

Eurus, already engaged in wind power generation in the United States, wants to take advantage of incentives expected to be provided by the new U.S. government to boost solar power generation nationwide, Nikkei said.

Tokyo Electric is one of four Japanese corporate giants moving into the U.S. renewable energy market with solar and wind power technologies, the daily said.

In anticipation of growing U.S. demand, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. will raise its domestic production capacity for wind turbines by about 30 percent to 1.6 million kilowatts possibly by March 2010, Nikkei said.

The 787-billion-dollar U.S. economic stimulus package, which was passed on Tuesday, earmarks 38 billion dollars for investments in the environmental  energy sectors.

 Is Obama dumb enough to bank roll these desert solar turkeys?

I hope the US does not bank roll the Japanese companies either

Here is a request for information about the CARRIZO SOLAR FARM. It concerns only the environmental information. Whether or not the system will produce energy is not a concern of the CEC. In my opinion it will produce very little electric energy.   Don Lutz

My comments: Matt Nauman is a fine fellow, but as is true of most newspaper reporters, he knows nothing about energy. In the first place PG&E did not buy 900 megawatt of electricity because this is only the power rating of the 900 MWe facility,  it is not electrical energy. PG&E bought nothing, and has taken no financial liability.  PG&E will pay for the energy kWh produced by the BrightSource company's solar power plant, if there ever is any. And the rate PG&W will pay has not been determined.

PG&E must commit to buying energy from solar plants as required by the State of California. If the rate is too high the State must reimburse PG&E for part of the cost of energy. This means you the tax payer will chip in.

As for a 900 MWe power plant, it probably will never get built because it requires many financial backers for such a project. Are there that many suckers out there? I think not.

Moreover, 900 MWe plant capacity will only provide enough electric energy for 160,000 homes, not 540,000. And they will have to power wash the panels every 10 days or so.

It appears that these  these plants will be the Tower power configuration. Perhaps the Brightsource Energy  Co. should visit the Tower Power Plant  at Daggett, CA. They did not work at all.

Review Process Begins for Solar Thermal Project in Kern County

Sacramento - 5/22/08 The California Energy Commission today accepted an application to build a 250-megawatt solar thermal generating complex in Kern County. By a vote of 5-0, the Commission said it has enough information to begin the review of the Beacon Solar Energy Project proposed by a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida Power and Light Company. After finding the application for certification (AFC) from Delaware-based Beacon Solar LLC "data adequate," the Commission assigned a committee of two to lead the 12-month review of the proposed plant. Commission staff will now begin the data discovery and analysis phase of the licensing process. Commissioner Karen Douglas will head the committee that will ensure that the project meets the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act. Commissioner Jeff Byron will serve as the Associate Member.

Beacon Solar LLC plans to develop the project on the western edge of the Mojave Desert along the California State Route 14 corridor, about four miles from California City and 15 miles from the town of Mojave. The Beacon Solar Energy Project would be situated on 2,012-acres of private land that used to be an agricultural site. The project would produce electricity using parabolic trough solar thermal technology. Thousands of parabolic mirrors assembled in rows would receive and concentrate the solar energy to produce steam for powering a steam turbine generator. If approved by the Commission the project will begin construction in the third quarter of 2009, with commercial operations targeted for the third quarter of 2011.

My Comments: They did not say what utility would get the energy from this plant. The parabolic trough is what I think will be the most successful. Perhaps we will see some day how much energy this plant will produce.

Stirling Engines Mirror- Solar Systems 

Pictures are two views of  fields of Stirling Engines mounted on a mirror which focuses the sun's photons onto the the engines mounted on the mirror assembly. The mirrors will track the suns movement throughout the day.

On August 11, 2005, Southern California Edison announced an agreement to purchase solar powered Stirling engines from Stirling Energy Systems[5] (SES) over a twenty year period and in quantity (20,000 units) sufficient to generate 500 megawatts of electricity. These systems - to be installed on a 4,500 acre solar farm - will use mirrors to direct and concentrate sunlight onto the engines which will in turn drive generators. Each Stirling engine-mirror module assembly has a power capacity of 25 kWe (33.4 hp)

Stirling Energy Systems (SES) is a systems integration and project management company that is developing equipment for utility-scale renewable energy power plants and distributed electric generating systems ("gensets"). SES is teamed with Kockums Submarine Systems, NASA-Glenn Laboratories, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), and The Boeing Company for solar power plants. SES is positioned to become a premier worldwide renewable energy technology company to meet the global demand for renewable electric generating technologies through the commercialization of its own Stirling cycle engine technology for solar and genset applications.

Stirling engines are powered by the expansion of a gas when heated, followed by the compression of the gas when cooled. The Stirling engine contains a fixed amount of gas which is transferred back and forth between a "cold" and  a "hot" end. The gasses used inside a Stirling engine never leave the engine.  There are no exhaust valves that vent high-pressure gasses, as in a gasoline or diesel engine.

 The Stirling engine receives the solar heat focused on the outside of the hot piston wall and it is supplied to the inside working fluid by conduction. The cold piston gas inside transfers its  heat through the wall to the outside heat sink. In this case the desert air.

The SES Solar Dish Stirling system is shaped much like large satellite dishes (approximately 37’ in diameter) and covered with curved mirrors. These solar dishes are programmed to always face the sun and focus that energy on a collector in much the same way that a satellite dish focuses radio waves on a tuner. This collector is connected to a Stirling engine which uses the thermal power generated by the focused solar energy to heat liquid hydrogen in a closed-loop system. The expanding hydrogen gas creates a pressure wave on the pistons of the Stirling engine which spins an electric motor creating electricity with no fuel cost or pollution. This technology is referred to as solar thermal or concentrating solar power.

The SES Solar Dish Stirling system is shaped much like large satellite dishes (approximately 37’ in diameter) and covered with curved mirrors. These solar dishes are programmed to always face the sun and focus that energy on a collector in much the same way that a satellite dish focuses radio waves on a tuner. This collector is connected to a Stirling engine which uses the thermal power generated by the focused solar energy to heat liquid hydrogen in a closed-loop system. The expanding hydrogen gas creates a pressure wave on the pistons of the Stirling engine which spins an electric motor creating electricity with no fuel cost or pollution. This technology is referred to as solar thermal or concentrating solar power.

SES maintains that the dish Stirling system is technologically ready for use today. They have spent the last 17 years in research and development, and are ready for mass deployment as soon as sufficient investments and/or execution of power agreements makes mass production possible.

SES expects that one dish on an annual basis can produce 60,000 kWh of electricity. Using these data supplied I calculate  a capacity factor of 27% for the system.  There is only a few hours in the winter season to generate energy and not a lot more in the Spring and Fall seasons.  Three months of Summer is the most productive hours and that is not a lot. No system that only produces a capacity factor of 25% will be a serious contender for energy production.