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thinking big

S

Steve

Jan 1, 1970
0
Imagine for a moment you had a billion dollars to spend on a utility-sized
PV installation.

How much power would it generate?
How much space would it take?
 
M

Mho

Jan 1, 1970
0
Would you build your won PV factory?

Think of the line size increases you may have to build to take the energy
away to load sites.

Think of all the breakdowns and protection switching you would have in
solid state components in 500MW of generating capacity.


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"Steve" wrote in message
Imagine for a moment you had a billion dollars to spend on a utility-sized
PV installation.

How much power would it generate?
How much space would it take?
 
A

argusy

Jan 1, 1970
0
Imagine for a moment you had a billion dollars to spend on a utility-sized
PV installation.

How much power would it generate?
How much space would it take?
AS much power as $1 billion dollars could build?
I dunno - how long's a piece of string?
Yeah, I know, depends on thickness, quality, material, age, flexibility etc.
Same goes for a $1 billion spent on a PV utility, I guess.

as for how much space - are you thinking horizontally or vertically?
Above or below ground?
In a city or in the desert?
In the USA? China? Alaska? Australia?
(or anywhere else you can spend $1 billion)

Come to think of it, Mildura in Victoria had a plan to put up a mile high tower,
with solar reflectors heating it up to generate several megawatts of power. That
was planned to cover an area with a 5Km diameter.

Now there's a starting point for how much space!!

Graham
 
S

Steve

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am thinking about Hawaii. They are struggling with ways to implement a
mandate to boost use of renewables that everyone can agree with.

Never mind tiny details - I am not building the thing myself. I am just
hoping for generalities about cost and space.

They can choose utility-size installs, or encourage every single property
owner to put a grid-connected unit on the roof. That is no doubt like
herding cats, so the utility-scale project is more likely to happen.

Steve
 
M

Mho

Jan 1, 1970
0
I would figure about $2 per Watt at that quantity. This would approximate
500MW of panels and electronics generating capacity (Using an American
billion count).

Three phase co-generators would be needed. Even at the 550kV three phase
tower line we would have 550 amperes of current on three strands of
conductor.

OK, let's make that about half the money for PV panels and the other half
for distribution costs. Funding / incentives for smaller pockets of PV
panels are probably more economically viable. The massive costs for
centralized energy source distribution for only 4-5 hours per day are
probably not warranted for the income, gross or net, on a distribution
system.


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"Steve" wrote in message
I am thinking about Hawaii. They are struggling with ways to implement a
mandate to boost use of renewables that everyone can agree with.

Never mind tiny details - I am not building the thing myself. I am just
hoping for generalities about cost and space.

They can choose utility-size installs, or encourage every single property
owner to put a grid-connected unit on the roof. That is no doubt like
herding cats, so the utility-scale project is more likely to happen.

Steve
 
S

Steve

Jan 1, 1970
0
Mho,

Thanks for that. So then you are suggesting that if Hawaii wants 500MW of
new PV capacity, it would be cheaper to go "distributed", with 1,000s of
rooftops covered, rather than one of more giant projects?

FYI, as we speak Hawaii is considering a $1B+ undersea cable, installed
simply to move future renewable capacity around the islands, mostly to Oahu.

Steve
 
M

Mho

Jan 1, 1970
0
OTOH:

The grid is and usually has to be (dark doesn't work well) already in place.
Now if the sources of generation are relatively close (geographically) or
their grid is built without depreciating capacity then it may be cheap to
add the PV sources.

"Depreciating capacity" is something we ran into when we purchased a hunk of
the old Ontario Hydro grid and customers. Their concept was always feed from
one end with big conductors and as load and customer fall off you save on
conductor metal by reducing size of conductor down to very small to feed the
last customer. Ours wasn't as we ran complete redundancy. Now suppose you
want to add a PV co-gen at the other end. Now you have no capability to
backfeed this grid spur line. If you build your grid fairly consistent in
conductor capacity, you don't have that problem and adding an alternative
source anywhere is not a problem. This was considered an unnecessary
extravagance.

Distributed co-gen sources avoid some of the losses and some of the grid
size and cost.... only during sunlight or other source times.


------------
"Steve" wrote in message
Mho,

Thanks for that. So then you are suggesting that if Hawaii wants 500MW of
new PV capacity, it would be cheaper to go "distributed", with 1,000s of
rooftops covered, rather than one of more giant projects?

FYI, as we speak Hawaii is considering a $1B+ undersea cable, installed
simply to move future renewable capacity around the islands, mostly to Oahu.

Steve
 
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