Utility-Scale Solar

Utility-scale solar markets are growing rapidly with over 1,000 MW under construction and many projects in the pipeline - now estimated to be 15,000 MW. (www.emergingenergy.com) The Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) reports that projects in the pipeline add up to more than 6 gigawatts (6,000 MW). Among them are projects planned for California’s Mojave Desert, Arizona and Florida. Four gigawatts of solar energy can power up to a million households.

Concentrating Solar and Utility-Scale PV

Concentrating solar is also known as "solar thermal" or "central station solar," and uses a combination of lenses or mirrors to focus the sun's heat upon tubes containing fluids - either water, molten salts or oils. The heated fluid is in turn used to drive steam turbines. The plants consist of two parts: one that collects solar energy and converts it to heat, and another that converts heat energy to electricity.

Concentrating solar - with its storage capacity - makes it the only renewable energy resource that can compete with fossil fuels as baseload power for a utility.  Unlike wind and photovoltaic solar, which can be intermittent depending on weather conditions, concentrating solar or any baseload power source serves a utililty predictably, day or night.

Utility-scale PV

Despite the intermittency, increasingly larger photovoltaic plants are on the drawing boards; Europe is the most advanced region with more than 1500 large-scale PV power plants currently in operation, followed by the USA with about 400 PV plants. (www.pvresources.com)

DESERTECH: Massive RE Plan Unveiled for Europe, ME & Africa

(From Solar Feeds) A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to establish the Desertec Industrial Initiative (DII), a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking to build New Energy in Europe (EU), the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and link it via a massive high voltage DC transmission system from the North and Baltic Seas to the Mahgreb and the Levant, has been completed.

The MOU involves a consortium of 9 German companies and 3 non-German companies, including some of the wealthiest and most influential financial institutions in the EU. The plan is to build dozens of CSP plants - beginning with a 2 gigawatt plant in Tunisi. Some wind is also on the drawing board.

Munich Re board member Torsten Jeworrek is the executive driving the new initiative. His explanation is that Munich Re, as a multinational insurance institution, stands to suffer huge losses if the worst impacts of global climate change become a reality. It is a far smarter undertaking for Munich Re and companies like it to invest a few hundred billion euros now than to ignore the impending disasters and wind up on the hook for hundreds of trillions to their insurees in a few decades.

CSP Outlook Study, Greenpeace

The billion dollar 2008 market for Concentrating Solar Power should more than double to $2.8 billion in 2009. According to a recent study, solar power plants in deserts have the potential to generate nearly a quarter of the world’s electricity by 2050. These are the conclusions of the 3rd joint report from Greenpeace International, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and IEA SolarPACES since 2003. Download