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California energy utility PG&E has agreed to buy power from a 177-megawatt solar thermal plant to be built by Silicon Valley company Ausra.
Ausra, of Palo Alto, Calif., is applying for a regulatory permit to build on 640 acres of ranch land in California’s San Luis Obispo county.
The idea behind solar thermal power is focusing mirrors on contained water, which then turns to steam that can drive turbines. We last reported on Ausra two months ago, when it raised $40 million from Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.
Ausra’s execution of the deal, if it goes through will help the company catch up with competitor BrightSource, which just cleared the regulatory hurdle for a 400-megawatt plant in the Mojave Desert last week, according to Green Wombat.
Although PG&E has now committed to buying over a gigawatt of solar thermal energy in coming years, it remains to be seen which startup’s designs are most effective.
Technology used by companies like BrightSource and Solel uses special curved mirrors to focus more light, and thus create more steam than Ausra’s plants. However, the latter’s approach, which uses mass-produced flat mirrors, is cheaper, the company says, potentially bringing the cost for solar thermal energy as low as coal-fired plants.
The technology for solar thermal itself has existed for decades. Photovoltaic cells, which directly capture sunlight, may possibly become cheap enough to be a viable replacement.
4 Comments
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Greenspan said:
Are you a journalist or a mouthpiece for corporate spin?
“California energy utility PG&E has agreed to buy power from a 177-megawatt solar thermal plant to be built by Silicon Valley company Ausra.”
Really? at what price? My guess is at a price that Ausra will never be able to reach cost-effectively, hence they will either never pay Ausra a cent or Ausra will get more dumb money for project finance and will lose money on every kilowatt-hour.
“Although PG&E has now committed to buying over a gigawatt of solar thermal energy in coming years, it remains to be seen which startup’s designs are most effective.”
PG&E has committed to buy power at a price that neither Ausra nor Brightsource can meet.
“However, the latter’s [Ausra's] approach, which uses mass-produced flat mirrors, is cheaper…”
Says who????
“Photovoltaic cells, which directly capture sunlight, may possibly become cheap enough to be a viable replacement.”
And pigs may possibly fly…
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Chris Morrison said:
Greenspan: Are you a commenter, or just a troll? Perhaps we should skip the labels and just talk about the issues.
PG&E doesn’t disclose the rates it buys electricity at for these kinds of projects or, actually, any project. However, it’s under a mandate to pull 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2010. Thus, PG&E isn’t the only one with bargaining chips on the table. You’re obviously speculating that they’re securing prices that producers like Ausra will never be able to meet, but I’ll leave speculation to you.
The statement that Ausra’s mirrors are cheaper is indeed what the company says. However, it’s not hard to believe that flat mirrors are cheaper. Check it out sometime, at your local mirror shop. You can even buy one for yourself. Just try not to stare into it too much.
Finally, regarding photovoltaic cells — yes, it’s common knowledge that they aren’t cost-effective yet. With few exceptions, cleantech isn’t, across the board. Although someone may one day genetically modify pigs to fly, I expect that one of the many cleantech bets will pay off before then.
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Greenspan said:
Other sources have quoted people close to PG&E stating that other agreements with solar thermal suppliers were signed at around 10 cents/kilowatt-hour. Since current costs of producing solar thermal are over 50% of that price, the chances that an unproven technology designed by unproven people like Ausra will meet that bar are beyond low.
You didn’t state that Ausra’s mirrors were cheaper, but that their “approach” was cheaper. The miniscule savings they get from flat mirrors will be vastly outweighed by losses in efficiency.
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Chris Morrison said:
Greenspan: Current costs for solar thermal are right around 50% higher than the price you’re suggesting, at worst less than double. Ausra has claimed elsewhere that it can already meet the 10 cents/kilowatt-hour price you mention for plants around the size of the they’re planning to build.
Is their claim true? Beats me, but smarter folk than I (with no affiliation to these companies) have done separate cost projections. They suggest that, if solar thermal plants continue to receive investment and are built in numbers, their construction costs will fall enough to put any of the competing solar thermal technologies in that 10 cents range.
For Ausra, BrightSource and others to bank on that scenario playing out is a bet that might see their companies succeed or fail miserably. Your take is that they’re almost certain to fail. That’s fine, but considering that you start your arguments with an attack on the character and intelligence of others (myself and the “unproven people” at Ausra) doesn’t do much to persuade me to your viewpoint.
What’s a little more difficult is addressing the whole range of issues around cleantech, from oil prices, to subsidies, to technology. We’ve dug into those problems here and there in longer past posts, and we’ll continue to do so in the future.
5 Trackbacks
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