Re: Faster, better, cheaper.... And no, this will likely not bring back more coal trains...
Author: BOB2-
Date: 02-02-2025 - 17:06
FUD Wrote:
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> The story quietly notes the real reason for the
> shutdown. It's not because the plant didn't work -
> it did work as designed when the sun shone enough
> (it was finished about the time of a lot of
> wildfires that filled the sky with smoke, so
> initial production was lower than expected). From
> a technical/engineering standpoint, it was a
> success - it produced power as designed, and
> unlike PVs without batteries it kept producing
> power for much of the night due to residual heat
> in the boilers. PV fields can do that only if they
> include a big bank of batteries, and at the time
> Ivanpah was built batteries were less capable than
> they are now, and much more expensive. Even now,
> the battery banks are usually designed to cover
> 3-4 hours after sunset, not all night.
>
> The real reason for the shutdown is that solar
> steam plants (which these are) cost too much to
> operate, so solar panels (PV) ate their lunch
> especially after the Chinese took over the market.
> PG&E knew they cost too much at the very
> beginning, and resisted signing up, but the PUC
> hammered on them (and SCE) to do it because
> **RENEWABLE!**. The much above market price
> required to make a profit on the power from these
> things is what killed them.
>
> IOW, nice experiment. Hope somebody learned
> something from them that can help if it's tried
> again in the future (which it probably won't be),
> that can reduce the cost of operation to make the
> power price competitive with other renewables
> (which are now much cheaper than power from gas or
> coal, even with batteries). Once the site is
> cleared, a standard PV setup will probably be
> installed producing as much power for less than
> half the price.
The price of solar panel electricity has fallen, because costs have fallen and efficiency is better. Storage is getting better and better, which has put pressure on the old "centralized" monopoly utility business model, of we make it and sell it to you on our monopoly distribution network. The decentralized "we make it ourselves" and store it "ourselves" and "sell" the surplus back to the grid model has created a huge surplus in pm solar, and the price has fallen, making this centralized business model solar plant uneconomical.
In fact, I have several friends and a retired colleague who all live in very high-cost rural electric states like Arizona and Texas that have gone completely "off of the grid" altogether, with solar, backup generator, and batteries, at way less cost than being "hooked" on the "monopolistic" costly grid.
And ain't it just awful?
We have some place generating so much pm solar that we can't use is all. What a terrible problem for us consumers, right? Too much surplus cheap electricity, OMG, so cheap it has pushed less efficient business models out of the market.
If these sites are sold, "written down" at a discount, then with a battery investment, they maybe might be profitable to operate again. The various transitions in wind technology and scale have seen some of this "down valuation" of the early windmill technology investments.
Faster, better, cheaper is a good thing, the surplus of pm solar "problem" is easy to solve with the use of these "awful" surpluses for generation of hydrogen which can be stored for use in fuel cells and the improvement in large capacity batteries, to adjust power availability to match the demand cycles.
And, given that this is a "train" chat board...
Maybe some of the power might even be used for Brightline, if this plant can be "written down" and resold at a sufficient discount to make it profitable to do so?
If you are waiting for the Black Mesa to restart rail coal operations any time soon or are thinking that you are going to be seeing coal trains changing crews in Needles, don't hold your breath, waiting to inhale the coal dust.
That is because continuing to operate the surplus natural gas fired power plants, we now have, is far less costly to operate, than reopening and upgrading some these now fifty-year-old coal plants.