The operator of electric power plants and co -owner NRG Energy Inc. He is preparing to close part of his Ivanpah solar power station in San Bernardino County, California, just over 11 years after starting to function. NRG agreed to terminate a couple of long -term purchase energy agreements with Utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co. For the energy generated at the installation, which still uses the technology that the operator says has been overcome by the photovoltaic generation of solar silicon.
Ivanpah is a flap solar electric power plant, which uses 173,500 heliostats, which are essentially reflected in moving montages so that they can track the sun, to reflect the sunlight on the boilers at the top of the towers 450 feet high per height Make steam that convert turbines to generate energy.
The plant has three units, each with its own tower surrounded by a series of heliostats, due to a total capacity of 386 MW.
The utility was hired to buy the power of two of the units until 2039. But he said in a statement that by 2021 – he said that the California Public Services Commission ordered the public ownership of the investors who evaluated their Energy sources – identified its Ivanpah purchase agreements as a potential area for finding cost savings, with plants owners who offer the opportunity to terminate agreements. Companies, together with the United States Department of Energy, ended negotiations to end the agreements last month. DOE provided $ 1.6 billion in guarantees of loans for the project.
NRG, based in Houston, said in a statement that negotiations allowed the department “maximizing the recovery of their loans and providing savings to California payers”. A NRG representative did not say how much the loan was refunded when asked, but said in a statement that the “concentrating solar power project was an innovative public-private collaboration that unites government entities with private businesses in The advancement of renewable energy. “
A second utility, southern California Edison, was also hired to buy energy from the third unit of Ivanpah until 2039. His representative told Enr that the utility is in ongoing discussions with plants owners and doe related to the purchase of your Ivanpah contract.
NRG said that he is now looking for the approvals of state and federal officials to begin closing units next year to disable. A NRG representative did not provide added details for the work or cost of the dessation.
Concentrating solar
Ivanpah was the world’s largest bell center in the world at the time of its construction, and NRG said that the project still demonstrated the viability of technology.
The construction of the $ 2.2 million plant began in 2010 with Bechtel Corp. as an engineering, recruitment and construction contractor. It began operating at the end of 2013 and is still the largest plant of this type built in the United States.
At the time of the construction of Ivanpah, Utility PG & Inverting in various types of clean energy technologies, including solar photovoltaic, hydroelectric, wind, biomass and geothermal.
“It is so important to support investment in different projects, as we seek to resolve climate challenges,” said Don Howerton, director of commercial recruitment at PG & E, in a statement. “It is not clear in the early stages which technologies will work best and will be more affordable for customers.”
Howerton added improvements in solar photovoltaic wafers and panels and large -scale battery storage. Technologies have “running” in terms of accessibility, according to PG & E.
Photovoltaic technology, or PV, uses silicon Crystals that laminate in layers, often called wafers, with opposite loads. When sunlight reaches crystals, it creates a direct electric current by means of a process called a photovoltaic effect.
It is believed that the generation of Ivanpah had prevented 500,000 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to the Department of Energy, but once operations, it caused criticism after the reports that insects and birds were burned up. to death when they flew too close to the White-Centa Tops tower. A 2015 report prepared for the State by the HT Harvey & Associates Ecological Consulting firm estimated that the plant killed about 3,500 birds in the first year of operation.
Ivanpah also faced performance problems. In 2014, plant owners obtained the permission of state officials to increase their annual natural gas limit for their 328 million feet boilers to 525 million feet, citing the need to use more fuel for Electric turbines to offset the coverage of the intermittent cloud.
“When energy shopping agreements were signed in 2009, prices were competitive, but advances over time in PV and battery storage have led to more efficient, profitable and flexible options for producing reliable net energy” , said NRG in a statement by email.
The plant occupies more than 3,200 hectares of federal land in the Mojave Desert, near the state-owned California-Nevada line. In his statement, NRG suggested that the site could be repopulated for the production of solar silicon photovoltaic energy after the launch of the existing plant, but did not share any specific plans for this future work.
