IEA report: installed solar PV capacity reached 137 GW in 2013

[ScienceRocks]

IEA report: installed solar PV capacity reached 137 GW in 2013

The share of distributed PV markets rose to 55% for the first time in 2013. The IEA says the speed of PV development comes from its ability to cover most market segments, from very small individual systems to utility-scale power plants.

Probably up to 200 gw this year.

 

[waltky]

Could help wean Ukraine off Russian gas...

Solar Power Plant in Africa to Supply Europe
October 29, 2014: WASHINGTON — By 2018, a large solar power plant in the Tunisian part of the Sahara desert may start sending power to energy-hungry Western Europe. The company running the plant says once it is fully operational it will generate almost twice as much electricity as an average nuclear plant and supply two million homes in Europe.

According to the European Commission’s Institute for Energy, just 0.3 percent of the Saharan Desert's intense solar energy can provide Europe with all the electrical power it needs. A company called Nur Energy plans to capture some of it by building a solar plant similar to an Israeli one in the Negev desert that uses heliotropic mirrors. This technology, unlike photovoltaic cells, can generate energy even when the sky is overcast or at night. Thousands of mirrors, spread over 100 square kilometers, will concentrate sunlight to a tower where it heats and melts a special salt.

Kevin Sara, the CEO of Nur Energy, said the technology makes storage easy. "You can then store that heat very easily, so you can continue producing electricity after the sun goes down,” said Sara. In a heat exchanger, the molten salt turns water into steam for turbines that turn electrical generators. Sara said the project could significantly decrease use of fossil fuels in Europe. "We could gradually decarbonize the European grid using desert power, using this solar energy with storage from the Sahara desert and linked to Europe with high-voltage DC cables which are very, very low in their losses,” said Sara,

The cable link to Europe is another interesting part of the project. Instead of the usual alternating current transmission, Nur Energy plans to send the power by a dedicated direct current underwater cable. Power being sent through the cable has a loss rate of just 3 percent per 1,000 kilometers. In addition to being cheaper, this technology requires no synchronization between different AC transmission systems.

Recently, Tunisia held its second democratic parliamentary elections. Sara said the solar energy project could contribute to the country’s stability. "A lot of this equipment can be manufactured by local Tunisian companies, and that will create employment and employment opportunities for the Tunisian youth,” said Sara. The construction of the solar plant in southwestern Tunisia is expected to start by the end of 2016, with the first kilowatts being delivered by late 2018.

VIDEO

 

[Roguewave]

They rate these thing in "capacity" meaning maximum output in ideal conditions. The real output is ~25% of the figure promoted, when working perfectly in bright sunlight. If your house is counting on that power, it better have its own back-up.

 

[Old Rocks]

Grid scale batteries will start to be a part of the grid, worldwide, before 2020. That makes wind and solar 24/7, at cheaper rates than fossil fuels, and no external costs, such as asthma rates.

 

[Roguewave]

That would be "nice." Nice is not an investment strategy.

 

[Old Rocks]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/24/b...-win-on-price-vs-conventional-fuels.html?_r=0

In Texas, Austin Energy signed a deal this spring for 20 years of output from a solar farm at less than 5 cents a kilowatt-hour. In September, the Grand River Dam Authority in Oklahoma announced its approval of a new agreement to buy power from a new wind farm expected to be completed next year. Grand River estimated the deal would save its customers roughly $50 million from the project.

And, also in Oklahoma, American Electric Power ended up tripling the amount of wind power it had originally sought after seeing how low the bids came in last year.

“Wind was on sale — it was a Blue Light Special,” said Jay Godfrey, managing director of renewable energy for the company. He noted that Oklahoma, unlike many states, did not require utilities to buy power from renewable sources.

“We were doing it because it made sense for our ratepayers,” he said.

According to a study by the investment banking firm Lazard, the cost of utility-scale solar energy is as low as 5.6 cents a kilowatt-hour, and wind is as low as 1.4 cents. In comparison, natural gas comes at 6.1 cents a kilowatt-hour on the low end and coal at 6.6 cents.

Looks like the ultra-liberals in Texas are investing in renewables in a big way.

 

[Old Rocks]

Damned liberal Texans;

Oncor proposes giant leap for grid batteries Dallas Morning News

Oncor, which runs Texas’ largest power line network, is willing to bet battery technology is ready for wide-scale deployment across the grid.

In a move that stands to radically shift the dynamics of the industry, Oncor is set to announce Monday that it is prepared to invest more than $2 billion to store electricity in thousands of batteries across North and West Texas beginning in 2018.

Utility-scale batteries have been a holy grail within the energy sector for years. With enough storage space, surplus electricity can be generated at night, when plants usually sit idle, to be used the next day, when demand is highest. Power outages would become less frequent. Wind and solar power, susceptible to weather conditions, could be built on a larger scale. The only problem has been that the price of batteries has been too high to make economic sense. But if they’re purchased on a large enough scale, that won’t be the case for long, said Oncor CEO Bob Shapard.

“Everyone assumed the price point was five to six years out. We’re getting indications from everyone we’ve talked to they can get us to that price by 2018,” he said in an interview Wednesday.

The Dallas-based transmission company is proposing the installation of 5,000 megawatts of batteries not just in its service area but across Texas’ entire grid. That is the equivalent of four nuclear power plants on a grid with a capacity of about 81,000 megawatts.