courtesy of the NY Times
Somewhere in West Palm Beach, Florida, occupying the former site of undisturbed swampland, sits a seemingly endless field of mirrors (190,000 to be exact). When completed next year, these mirrors will constitute a big chunk of the world’s second largest solar powered power plant. While this in and of itself would be newsworthy on its own, the solar plant’s immediate neighbor, to which it’s actually connected to, is another “world’s largest” power plant holder; only this power plant is powered by fossil-fuel.
Gray On Green
That’s right, the FPL Group utility, owner of both the solar and natural gas-fired power plants, is trying a new experiment in hybrid utility-scale energy production. By grafting the production of the solar array onto the existing natural gas power plant (the largest in the U.S.), the company is trying to see whether or not conventional power generation can be complimented in a practical and economical way with renewable energy. The end result of course being a less environmentally harmful power production facility that is cheaper to run.
While many solar power plants already incorporate small scale gas turbines to augment their power output on cloudy days, this is the first time such a large scale solar array has been placed into service for the benefit of a conventional fossil fuel power plant. Since the variable and intermittent nature of power output from renewable energy sources. such as wind and solar, is probably their biggest shortcoming at the moment, the West Palm Beach ‘hybrid configuration’ (known officially as the Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center) aims to show that when connected to a production facility that can provide demanded power instantly, solar makes more practical and economical sense from a utility scale perspective.
What It Can Do
The solar array itself is capable of producing 75 megawatts of power, enough to power 11,000 homes, which sounds like a lot; until you look at its neighbor’s capacity of 3,800 megawatts. From the NY Times:
The solar panels concentrate the sun’s rays into a vacuum-sealed tube that contains a synthetic oil, which heats up to 748 degrees Fahrenheit. The oil is then used to produce steam that is fed into an existing turbine to produce electricity. Using small sensors, the mirrors will be able to rotate during the day to track the sun’s movement. In case of a hurricane, they will flip upside down for protection.
So why would FPL invest almost $500 million dollars on a project to get such a relatively small energy production return? There are a couple of reasons.
Why Would A Utility Go Solar?
First, a fairly large percentage (around 20%) of generation capacity from power plants is essentially wasted by never really being used. This is because the grid, to which these plants are connected, is also feed power from renewable sources as well. These renewable sources do not supply power to the grid at a constant rate like a conventional power plant and therefore require the latter to operate at almost the same capacity it would have if the renewable energy sources were not there in the first place. What this really means is that these plants have to remain idle and ready to fire up at a moments notice to meet demand. Keeping a plant ‘idle’ costs money, and the always industrious utility companies would love to save about 20% in their operation costs.
The second reason a project like the FPL hybrid project exists is due to utilities taking preemptive action toward a federal mandate about to be passed, but currently stalled…like everything else in Washington, by Congress that will require all utilities to have at least 25% of the power generation come from clean renewable sources. 29 states have already passed similar requirements, so for the utility companies; the writing is on the wall.
Lastly, the environmental PR for a utility company is worth far more than the project costs. Considering utilities are the largest contributor to greenhouse gases, they need all the ‘green press’ they can get. The West Palm Beach FPL project is expected to have some fairly significant environmental benefits. Again from the Times:
FPL estimates it will cut its natural gas use by 1.3 billion cubic feet each year, the consumption of 18,000 American homes. It will also cut carbon emissions by 2.75 million tons over 30 years, the equivalent of taking 19,000 cars off the road.
The Good: A huge solar array that will help compliment the energy produced at its symbiotic natural-gas-powered neighbor. This type of ‘hybrid’ configuration may allow for significantly reduced run times for fossil-fuel-based power plants, thereby reducing emissions, cost, and environmental impact.
The Bad: The setup up is the ‘Yukon Hybrid’ of power production. Yes, it has some ’shades of green’, but in the end, it’s still a fossil-fuel-based facility that produces CO2 emissions. This type of setup is somewhat geographically dependent and requires a lot of acreage in uninhabited and/or sparsely populated parts of the country. Location displaced local flora and fauna native to area swamps.
The Bottom-Line: Like hybrid vehicles, this hybrid power production setup is ‘less bad’; therefore, given the current metrics by which endeavors such as this one are measured, more environmentally friendly (good).
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