U.S. Navy Awards $200 Million Contract for Solar PV Power Plants in Southwest

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://sunpluggers.com/states/california/2010/03/us-navy-awards-contract-for-solar-pv-power-plants-in-southwest-000124.php

U.S. Navy Awards $200 Million Contract for Solar PV Power Plants in Southwest

Published March 12, 2010

The U.S. Navy has awarded a $200 million contract to construct solar photovoltaic power plants producing up to 40 megawatts of electricity at Navy and Marine Corps bases throughout the Southwest.

The Navy contract is the latest development in the U.S. military's move to dramatically increase the use of solar electricity at its facilities across the country.

Separately, Luke Air Force Base in Arizona has announced that it plans to build what may become the largest solar photovoltaic array in the Air Force by December 2011.

The Navy contract, awarded by the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest, based in San Diego, will be divided among five companies that will compete to take on individual solar power projects ranging from 1 to 15 megawatts.

...

[OnlinePoker]

1. I know solar is everywhere at Pearl Harbor

On the base and on the married quarters.

[Statistical]

2. $5000 per KW installed.

Given the PV produces 1/5 to 1/7th that of a nuclear plant or a per watt basis that is a horrible metric.

AP1000 = $7 billion = 1150MW @ 92% capacity = 9300 million kWh annually.

PV Solar = $0.2 billion = 40MW @ 20% capacity = 70 million kWh annually.

9300/70 = 132. It would take 132 projects like this to equal output of a single AP1000.

132* $200 million = $26.5 billion.

1 AP1000 = $7 billion
or
132 40MW PV Array = $26.5 billion

both produce the same amount of power annually. The only difference is the AP1000 will last 60 years while PV array will need to be replaced in 30.

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. I don't beleive your calculations are valid.

http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=51636

...

"This contract will enable the Navy and Marine Corps to take advantage of the tremendous solar resource in the southwestern US," said Nate Butler, NAVFAC Southwest Renewable Program Office team leader. "These projects will generate clean energy for our military bases, lower our electricity bills, and help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."

Five solar development teams were awarded indefinite-quantity contracts to provide power to the Department of the Navy through construction of photovoltaic (PV) power plants on military land. The developers will construct, own, operate, and maintain the systems, and sell the power to the Navy and Marine Corps through power purchase agreements (PPA).

"The great thing about a PPA contract is that the government buys power from a solar generation system that is financed, owned, and operated by the developer," said Butler. "The Navy and Marine Corps get green power with no initial capital investment."

...

What does it cost to dispose of nuclear waste?

[Statistical]

4. Not sure what you think the quote says.

Just because the military doesn't have a capital cost doesn't mean the capital cost doesn't exist.

The reality is to construct a plant that produces the SAME amount of power with PV panels as can be produced from a single reactor requires $26.5 billion.

The only reason solar looks "cheap" is the plants are tiny (40MW vs 1150MW) and they have very low capacity factor.
If tomorrow the US govt announced plants to build a PV plant that produces 9.2 billion kWh annually (output from a single 1150MW reactor) it would cost in the ballpark of $26.5 billion.

Don't get me wrong I am pro-solar. I think we should double even quadruple the number of solar installs, however nuclear gets "bashed" because of its high price tag. I am just putting into the context the even HIGHER pricetag of solar.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Correct me if I'm wrong

Your calculations appear to only show the cost of construction for the nuclear plants.

What is the cost of fueling and decommissioning them (including disposal of the nuclear waste?)

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/basic-ref/students/decommissioning.html

...

NRC has very strict rules for shutting down a plant. The NRC requires plants to finish the process within 60 years of closing. Since it may cost $300 million or more to shut down and decommission a plant, the NRC requires plant owners to set aside money when the plant is still operating to pay for the future shutdown costs.

...

http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/decommissioning.html

...

Before a nuclear power plant begins operations, the licensee must establish or obtain a financial mechanism – such as a trust fund or a guarantee from its parent company – to ensure that there will be sufficient money to pay for the ultimate decommissioning of the facility. Licensees must update the NRC on the status of these mechanisms every two years (annually within five years of the planned end of plant operations). This requirement provides the public reasonable assurance that funds will be available when needed to clean up a plant site and avoid costly legacy sites that must be cleaned up at taxpayer expense.

...

[Statistical]

6. "The U.S. Navy has awarded a $200 million contract to construct solar photovoltaic power plants"

"The U.S. Navy has awarded a $200 million contract to construct solar photovoltaic power plants". $200 million is the construction cost of the plants not total lifetime cost. It is simply the construction cost (overnight costs) and excludes financing (cost of capital), operating, maintenance, decommissioning.

AP1000 = $7 billion construction cost.
40MW Solar = $200 million construction cost.

Just pointing out that the construction cost of solar is roughly 450% higher on the only metric that matter, per unit of energy delivered. Solar is only "cheaper" because the proposed plants are much smaller.

This isn't an isolated incident. Here is the largest PV plant in the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeSoto_Next_Generation_Solar_Energy_Center
25 MW, construction costs $150 million = $5000 per KW installed.

Starting to see a trend?


If you want to do the whole lifecycle cost go ahead but solar is still far more expensive. Often we hear we shouldn't build nuclear because renewables are so much cheaper. Just showing that while $7 billion for a nuclear reactor sounds large a large number compared to $200 million for PV plant one is roughly 130x larger (in terms of energy delivered) that the other.

The operating (marginal) costs of nuclear plants are very low. IPCC analysis is 1.6 cents per kWh, DOE estimate is 1.2 cents. For nuclear and solar (and to lesser extent wind) construction costs massively dominate the total life cycle costs. Decommissioning costs run $0.5B to $1B which sounds like another big number but they are amortized over a 60 year lifespan. In 60 years a nuclear plants will generate over half a trillion kWh (at $0.06 per kWh that is $33 billion lifetime revenue).

[phantom power]

7. +1

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. You still haven't included

The cost of fueling the reactor or waste disposal.

Similarly, how do you suppose the costs of securing these facilities will compare. (Are the requirements for securing a solar farm on a par with securing a nuclear facility?)

At the same time, solar farms have the advantage of generating electricity on site. (Unless you factor in the costs of building multiple small plants at each of these locations, your calculations are not valid.)


There are many more factors involved here than initial construction costs.

[Statistical]

9. Yes I have.

Operating costs (marginal costs) include:
operating
maintenance
fuel
waste storage - via fee to federal govt
decomisioning trust

The DOE estimate for US is 1.2 cent per kWh.
The IPCC estimate for World is 1.6 cent per kWh.

Construction and Financing is 80%+ of 'lifecycle cost' of nuclear reactor.

[OKIsItJustMe]

10. Most important fact

http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=51636

... "These projects will generate clean energy for our military bases, lower our electricity bills, and help to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."

They're saving money. Could they save more money with nuclear? Perhaps. We cannot assign a cost for fuel disposal at this time, because we have no system in place to do it.


A second important fact:
http://www.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=51636

The first three projects to be awarded under this contract will be in California. These projects are expected to be awarded later this spring, and to be fully operational within a year.

How fast can you bring your theoretical nuclear reactor on-line?

[Statistical]

11. Once again the fair comparison would be

how fast can all these projects PlUS projects with combined capacity that are 132x as large.

When the first AP1000 comes online in GA it will have more output than all PV solar every built in the United States.

The scale of large numbers often messes with peoples perception of reality.

The two AP100 being built in GA (with estimated completion in 2017) have combed annual output of 18.4 BILLION kWh. DOE projection for all PV solar in the entire united States COMBINED to be about 4 billion kWh.

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. I can cope with large numbers

Once again, they're saving money, and they're doing it in a short time frame.

How fast can 1 GW of nuclear capacity be manufactured?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClLKVs9oSxE

[Statistical]

13. less than 4 years (in Japan, Korea, and China)

In the US probably 5 years.

Will we build enough solar in the United States to equal the output of just the first nuclear reactor in the same amount of time? Nope. Not even close.

Couple points:
1) Nanosolar announced that 3 years ago. Use google and look up news from 2007. To-date their production runs are less than 10MW annually. They are not profitable and require injections of Venture capital to stay open. Someday will nanosolar be able to rollout cheap PV panels? Maybe but not today.

2) Even 1GW production per year is less than a single nuclear reactor construciton. Remember solar has capacity factor of 12% to 19% depending on location. So 1GW of solar is more like 150MW to 200MW of nuclear.

3) A pair of 1 GW reactors (reactors are usually built in pairs) over 5 years is is an annualized production rate of 400MW. Compare that to #2 above (which is technology that hasn't made it past prototype stage).

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. (I'm guessing you didn't watch the video.)

Try this one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGuwUQ1gl8Y

[Statistical]

15. I did watch the video.

In 2009 using that technology nanosolar delivered an amazing 12MW of panels.

12 MW. Not 1000 MW. Not even close. Eventually someday they might be able to deliver on the promise but obviously they have some issues to work out.

http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog

At 12 MW a year (which is comparable to 2MW of nuclear energy) it would "only" take them 500 or so years to deliver enough panels to equal a SINGLE reactor.

Nanosolar is currently NOT do 1GW annual production runs. They are doing small test runs because the technology is NOT ready for large scale commercial applications yet. Does nanosolar have a lot of potential? Sure. If they were publicly traded I would own stock based on the POTENTIAL.

They have been promising 1 GW annual capacity at $1 a watt for 3 years now.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9783878-7.html

These videos are new. I saw them years ago.

Will they deliver in 2010? 2012? 2015?

That "1 GW annual capacity" is what is called a "forward looking statement".

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. Nanosolar Completes (European) Panel Factory, Commences Serial Production

http://www.nanosolar.com/company/blog#66

Nanosolar Completes Panel Factory, Commences Serial Production

By Nanosolar Communications - September 9, 2009

Today Nanosolar demonstrated the completion of its European panel-assembly factory as part of an inauguration event attended by Germany's Minister of the Environment, the Governor of the State of Brandenburg, and a host of other leading public officials. Located in Luckenwalde near Berlin, the fully-automated factory processes Nanosolar cells into finished Nanosolar panels using innovative high-throughput manufacturing techniques and tooling developed by Nanosolar and its partners.

The panel factory is automated to sustain a production rate of one panel every ten seconds, or an annual capacity of 640MW when operated 24x7. Nanosolar also today announced that serial production in its San Jose, California, cell production factory commenced earlier this year.

"Getting to the point of serial production with the unusual cost reduction involved in our technology is an accomplishment due to the incredible work and perseverance of our team," said CEO Roscheisen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGuwUQ1gl8Y

Production is presently set at approximately one MW per month. As Nanosolar's customers attain project financing from commercial banks for the new panel product, the company will increase its monthly production rate to deliver on its contractual customer commitments totaling $4.1 billion to date.

...

At this point, it does not seem to be a technical problem.

[Statistical]

18. Or rose colored glasses.

Take the Navy $200 million project. Why aren't they using nanosolar?

They have promised 1 GW annual production capacity at $1 per watt for nearly 4 years now.

When they do it and I can go buy a nanosolar panel for half of what current PV panels are then I will believe it.

[OKIsItJustMe]

19. OK, when I can buy a nuclear plant for my house

I'll believe it. (BTW: Can I dump my waste in your basement?)

[Statistical]

22. Why would you dump any waste in your backyard?

I wouldn't.

However the idea that solar doesn't have toxic waste is a joke.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html


BTW: A nuclear reactor powers 32% of the power delivered to my home. It has for over 30 years now. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surry_Nuclear_Power_Plant

I will build PV array on my house but not until it makes economic sense. I have run some numbers including all costs, labor, financing. Have you?

Solar is PART of the solution. It isn't a magic bullet that will solve all energy problems. It isn't cheap, and it does have real environmental issues.

[OKIsItJustMe]

23. Now you've stooped to simple dishonesty

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/08/AR2008030802595.html

...

In China, polysilicon plants are the new dot-coms. Flush with venture capital and with generous grants and low-interest loans from a central government touting its efforts to seek clean energy alternatives, more than 20 Chinese companies are starting polysilicon manufacturing plants. The combined capacity of these new factories is estimated at 80,000 to 100,000 tons -- more than double the 40,000 tons produced in the entire world today.

But Chinese companies' methods for dealing with waste haven't been perfected.

Because of the environmental hazard, polysilicon companies in the developed world recycle the compound, putting it back into the production process. But the high investment costs and time, not to mention the enormous energy consumption required for heating the substance to more than 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for the recycling, have discouraged many factories in China from doing the same. Like Luoyang Zhonggui, other solar plants in China have not installed technology to prevent pollutants from getting into the environment or have not brought those systems fully online, industry sources say.

...

"If this happened in the United States, you'd probably be arrested," he said.

...

Honestly, I expect better from you.

[Statistical]

24. China is the global leader in PV market and GROWING.

Also many things are recylable but that doesn't prevent them from ending up in landfills in the United States.

The US also ships billions of tons of technology waste to other countries.

The idea that there is no waste in solar and it will all be 100% recycled and never end up in landfill, or never produced in countries that care a lot less about the environment (China).

There is environmental waste when it comes to solar panels. It can be recycled but most of it never will be (just like lithium ion batteries, aluminum cans, plastic bags all end up in landfills).

[OKIsItJustMe]

25. Right, and China produces a lot of other stuff in a hazardous fashion

That does not mean that these things are not produced in a clean fashion elsewhere in the world.

[OKIsItJustMe]

17. New Solar Manufacturing Plants Coming to Four States

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/news_detail.cfm/news_id=15837

March 03, 2010

New Solar Manufacturing Plants Coming to Four States

The Dow Chemical Company announced on February 3 that it has picked Midland, Michigan, as the site for the first full-scale production facility for its Dow Powerhouse solar shingle, if the company obtains sufficient local, state, and federal funding. That became more likely on February 25, when the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) awarded $61.3 million in tax credits over 15 years to Dow for a variety of projects, including the manufacturing plant. The proposed facility will produce solar shingles that can be integrated into rooftops with standard asphalt shingles. The devices employ low-cost, thin-film solar modules made from copper indium gallium diselenide, or CIGS. The CIGS materials are deposited on a flexible stainless steel substrate by Global Solar Energy, which recently confirmed that its solar modules can convert 13.2% of the sunlight hitting them into electricity, setting a record for thin-film, flexible solar modules. Dow forms the shingles by encasing the modules in a proprietary plastic. The company is already manufacturing solar shingles in a small-scale market development plant in Midland, thanks to a DOE grant of $20 million awarded in 2007 under the Solar America Initiative Pathways Program. The full-scale plant could be operational by 2014, bringing more than 1,200 jobs to the area. See the press releases from Dow and MEDC.

The Dow news follows several recent announcements of new solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing facilities. China's Suntech Power, the world's largest manufacturer of crystalline silicon PV modules, announced in January that it would build a manufacturing plant in Goodyear, Arizona. The site will have capacity to make 30 megawatts (MW) of solar panels per year, but can grow to more than 120 MW. In November 2009, Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell announced that Heliosphera US plans to build a thin-film solar plant in Philadelphia's Navy Yard, creating 400 jobs. The State of Pennsylvania helped the project with a $49 million incentive package of loans and grants. And SolarWorld, a global solar manufacturing firm, said in October 2009 that it will add a new solar module assembly line to its manufacturing plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. The addition will make the Hillsboro plant the first fully integrated crystalline silicon PV plant in the Americas. With the new addition, the facility will handle the full production cycle, starting with polysilicon rock and ending with finished solar modules. SolarWorld completed its initial 480,000-square-foot factory in 2008, and a new, adjacent 210,000-square-foot building will house the module assembly line, which will have the capacity to produce 350 MW of solar modules per year. See the press releases from Suntech, the State of Pennsylvania, and SolarWorld.

New solar technologies are also entering the commercial arena, as G24i, a manufacturer of dye-sensitized solar cells, announced its first commercial shipment of solar modules in October 2009. Mascotte Industrial Associates (MIA), a Hong Kong-based manufacturer, is integrating the flexible solar modules into bags and backpacks for on-the-go recharging of mobile electronic devices, such as cell phones. The relatively new solar cell technology employs dyes that absorb sunlight and generate electrons, which are captured by nanoparticles of titanium dioxide and channeled to an electrode to create current. The G24i solar modules are manufactured in Wales and are flexible enough to be integrated into a wide range of products. See the G24i press release and technology description and the MIA Web site.

As dye-sensitized solar cells start to gain a foothold in the solar market, thin-film solar cells have become firmly established. Last year was a banner year for U.S.-based First Solar Inc., which reports that it manufactured and shipped more than 1 gigawatt of its thin-film solar modules in 2009, becoming the first PV company to attain this production volume. First Solar modules use cadmium telluride semiconductor material deposited on glass. One gigawatt of solar modules produces enough electricity to serve the needs of approximately 145,000 average U.S. homes and saves roughly 1 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually. First Solar's successes also reflect a global trend of rapid expansion in the PV industry. According to the eighth annual PV status report from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), worldwide production of PV solar modules and panels leapt to about 7.3 GW in 2008, an 80% increase over 2007. The JRC noted that a significant slowdown in PV investment in the second half of 2008 and early 2009 started to reverse itself by the second quarter. China became the leading producer of solar cells with an annual production of about 2.4 GW, followed by Europe with 1.9 GW, Japan with 1.2 GW, and Taiwan with 0.8 GW. If production continues to grow at the 2009 rate, the JRC predicts that China could have 32% of the world-wide PV production capacity by 2012. See the press releases from First Solar and the JRC (PDF 157 KB). Download Adobe Reader.

[Statistical]

20. No doubt solar is growing but it still is prohibitively expensive.

Also 7.3 GW worldwide capacity sounds big (one again that scope of big numbers problem) however world wide electrical capacity is 15 TW (15,000 GW) this is projected to double by 2030 to 30 TW.

So 7.3 GW of solar installed annually represents less than 0.04% of worldwide capacity.

[OKIsItJustMe]

21. How many nuclear plants were built in the US last year?

I guess the technology behind them doesn't work, right?

Or is it that they are prohibitively expensive?

[jpak]

26. ummm...what is the cost of disposing and monitoring all that spent fuel for the next 300+ years???

megabux

yup

nuclear

:thumbsdown:

[kristopher]

27. Ha. - Cost of *future* nuclear power

As noted previously, an “Overnight” cost estimate is not intended to be an indication of total costs to
build a nuclear plant. Since construction takes place over a long period, annual cost escalations and
the Cost of Capital each become major components of the total capital costs:

“Overnight” Cost Estimate (in 2007 Dollars): $ 4,070/KW

Construction Cost Escalations $ 3,370/KW

Cost of Capital Used During Construction: $ 3,114/KW

Total Estimated “All In” Capital Costs: $10,553/KW


Putting everything together:

“MOST LIKELY” SCENARIO
Projected Total Generation Cost/kWh of New Nuclear Power
(In Nominal Dollars in Projected 2018 First Year of Full Operation)
COST COMPONENT .......................$/KWH
CAPITAL COST .........................$0.22
OPERATION & MAINTENANCE W/O FUEL .....$0.01
PROPERTY TAXES .......................$0.02
DECOMMISSIONING & WASTE COSTS RESERVE $0.02
FUEL CYCLE COSTS .....................$0.03

TOTAL DOLLARS/KWH ..............$0.30



The “Lower Cost” Case has Capital Costs of $0.17/kWh, thus a total $0.25/kWh.

Business Risks and Costs of New Nuclear Power
Craig A. Severance

And even if we use the nuclear industry estimates:

Dr. Mark Cooper - These three major developments in the nuclear
power industry in late June underscore the key findings of the study "The Economics
of Nuclear Reactors, Renaissance or Relapse?", released on June 18 by economist
Dr. Mark Cooper, a senior fellow for economic analysis at the Institute for Energy and
the Environment at Vermont Law School. The analysis of over three dozen cost
estimates for proposed new nuclear reactors shows that the projected price tags for
the plants have quadrupled since the start of the industry's so-called "nuclear
renaissance" at the beginning of this decade - a striking parallel to the eventually
seven-fold increase in reactor costs estimates that doomed the "Great Bandwagon
Market" of the 1960s and 1970s, when in the U.S.A. half of planned nuclear reactors
had to be abandoned or cancelled due to massive cost overruns.

Key Findings
Within the past year, estimates of the cost of nuclear power from a new generation
of reactors have ranged from a low of 8.4 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to a high of
30 cents. The paper tackles the debate over the cost of building new nuclear
reactors, with the key findings as follows:
* The initial cost projections put out early in today's so-called "nuclear renaissance"
were about one-third of what one would have expected, based on the nuclear
reactors completed in the 1990s.
* The most recent cost projections for new nuclear reactors are, on average, over
four times as high as the initial "nuclear renaissance" projections
* There are numerous options available to meet the need for electricity in a carbon-
constrained environment that are superior to building nuclear reactors. Indeed,
nuclear reactors are the worst option from the point of view of the consumer and
society.
* The low carbon sources that are less costly than nuclear include efficiency,
cogeneration, biomass, geothermal, wind, solar thermal and natural gas. Solar
photovoltaics that are presently more costly than nuclear reactors are projected to
decline dramatically in price in the next decade. Fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage, which are not presently
available, are projected to be somewhat more costly than nuclear reactors.
* Numerous studies by Wall Street and independent energy analysts estimate efficiency and renewable costs at an average
of 6 cents per kilowatt hour, while the cost of electricity from nuclear reactors is estimated in the range of 12 to 20 cents
per kWh.
* The additional cost of building 100 new nuclear reactors, instead of pursuing a least cost efficiency-renewable strategy,
would be in the range of $1.9-$4.4 trillion over the life the reactors.

Whether the burden falls on ratepayers (in electricity bills) or taxpayers (in large subsidies), incurring excess costs of that
magnitude would be a substantial burden on the national economy and add immensely to the cost of electricity and the cost
of reducing carbon emissions.

CBO estimates the same pattern will repeat for new generation of reactors:

CBO considers the risk of default on such a loan guarantee to be very high—well above
50 percent. The key factor accounting for this risk is that we expect that the plant would be
uneconomic to operate because of its high construction costs, relative to other electricity
generation sources. In addition, this project would have significant technical risk because
it would be the first of a new generation of nuclear plants, as well as project delay and
interruption risk due to licensing and regulatory proceedings