New Solar Plant Emits Twice CO2 Than Fossil Plant

[westwall]

This development will probably put an end to plants like Ivanpah. The prices are even cheaper now, and Austin, Texas is planning on building a Gw plus plant.

PV Power Plants 2014 - Industry Guide: Falling prices, new markets

The installation costs are relatively low; even very large solar power plants can be planned and built in a short period of time. This is how the 148,000 solar modules at the 70-MW Solarpark Meuro in Meuro/Schipkau (Brandenburg, Germany) were installed in only four weeks. The maintenance costs, too, are relatively low, because a PV facility is a fixed installation, and has no moving parts. Therefore, problems may occur almost exclusively in the electrical system. These problems can generally be easily prevented (for example, through professional line layouts) or quickly remedied (for example, by exchanging damaged solar modules or defective converters).

Since sunshine is available everywhere, all that is required is open space and a mains supply point. A large number of solar farms were installed in Germany up until 2012, because they received favorable legislative supply subsidies, and the relatively dense network provides enough nearby mains supply points. This activity reached its peak in 2012 when the number of PV systems with more than 1 MW power accounted PV Power Plants 2014: The industry for a share of about 40 percent of the total market amounting to approximately 7,400 MWp. This corresponds to PV power of about 3,000 MW.

The amount of usable open space for PV was severely reduced due to amendments to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Meanwhile, the largest solar farms in the world have since been built in the USA and China. Open space is available in both of these countries in nearly unlimited quantities, however, a significant upturn began there as soon as system prices had dropped so much in recent years that commercially successful plants were possible even without promotions in the form of supply subsidies.

That and the fact they don't seem to work all that well. Ivanpah is still producing very low amounts of solar power. So low they almost don't register on the CA power grid monitor.

 

[Old Rocks]

Ivanpah Solar Production Up 170% in 2015

Looks like Ivanpah is coming up to speed.

 

[Old Rocks]

Looks like that would register on anyone's grid.

 

[skookerasbil]

But compared to what?

I could post up a graph of the growth of my big toe nail from Monday > Wednesday and when compared to nothing else, it'd look impressive as hell!!!

Solar growth is indeed impressive, but only when compared to itself. That's the neat thing about statistics......manipulation of the #'s can easily dupe the uninformed idiot out there in Radioland.

When compared to ALL other energy sources, solar is a joke.

30 years from now, solar when combined with all other sources of renewable energy will still cover less than 11% of our energy needs and geothermal will dominate that 11% number.

Who's not winning?

 

[Old Rocks]

Solar Power Sees Unprecedented Boom in U.S.

Moreover, solar accounted for 32 percent of the nation's new generating capacity in 2014, beating out both wind energy and coal for the second consecutive year. Only natural gas constituted a greater share of new generating capacity, according to the report.

"From a high-level national perspective, the market has continued to see really impressive growth," both in established solar markets like California and Arizona and in regions where solar is a relative newcomer, such as in Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana.

At that rate of added generation, solar will soon become a very large part of the grid.