How to use Solar Energy at Night

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• BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,281 admin

  February 2009 #2

  Re: How to use Solar Energy at Night
  
  From the article:

  All told, that means thermal energy storage at Andasol 1 or power plants like it costs roughly $50 per kilowatt-hour to install, according to NREL's Glatzmaier. But it doesn't add much to the cost of the resulting electricity because it allows the turbines to be generating for longer periods and those costs can be spread out over more hours of electricity production. Electricity from a solar-thermal power plant costs roughly 13 cents a kilowatt-hour, according to Glatzmaier, both with and without molten salt storage systems.
  
  That price is still nearly twice as much as electricity from a coal-fired power plant—the current cheapest generation option if environmental costs are not taken into account. But Arizona's APS and others can then use solar energy to meet the maximum electricity demand later in the day. "Our peak demand [for electricity] is later in the evening, once solar production is trailing off," Lockwood says. That's "the reason we went that direction and are so interested in storage technology."

  If it works--not bad at all for a plant with energy storage. I read one article that quoted a pure PV plant as producing ~$0.09 per kWhr (no storage).
  
  -Bill

  Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
  

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• Solar Guppy Solar Expert Posts: 1,989 ✭✭✭

  February 2009 #3

  Re: How to use Solar Energy at Night
  
  Sodium storage is the only logical future for solar thermal electric. Most in planning thermal plants are going to be using this technology and long term it resolves the issue of plant generation when the suns not out
  
  Our deserts could power the country, its not a technology issue but a distribution issue on getting the energy to where its used

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• Malasombra Solar Expert Posts: 24 ✭

  March 2009 #4

  Re: How to use Solar Energy at Night
  
  In that area apart from Andasol ( 1,2 ,3 ) there are at least 50 big wind gens and luckily i will get involved in the new plant planned in the same zone.
  I saw all this complex while going to a 10.8Mw fv plant nearby.

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