Nevada Solar One
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Nevada Solar One is the second largest concentrated solar power plant in the world, with a nominal capacity of 64 MW and maximum capacity of 75 MW, as of June 2007. The project required an investment of $266 million USD[1] and electricity production is estimated to be 134 million kilowatt hours per year.[2]
It is the second solar thermal power plant built in the United States in more than 16 years[3] and the largest STE plant built in the world since 1991.[4] It is on the southeast fringes of Boulder City, Nevada. It was built by Acciona Solar Power (formerly Solargenix), a partially owned subsidiary of Spanish conglomerate Acciona Energy.[5] Acciona purchased a 55 percent stake in Solargenix and owns 95 percent of the project.[6] Nevada Solar One is unrelated to the Solar One power plant in California.
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[edit] History
A year earlier, Arizona Public Service's Saguaro Solar Facility opened, in 2006, using similar technology, located 30 miles north of Tucson, and producing 1 MW.[7] Nevada Solar One went online for commercial use on June 27, 2007.[8] It was constructed over a period of 16 months. The total project site is approximately 400 acres (0.6 mi² / 1.6 km²), while the solar collectors cover 300 acres (1.2 km2).
[edit] Technology
Nevada Solar One uses 760 parabolic troughs (using more than 180,000 mirrors) made by Flabeg AG in Germany[9] that concentrate the sun's rays onto thermos tubes running laterally through the troughs and containing a heat transfer fluid (solar receivers), in contrast to the power tower concentrator concept that California's original Solar One project uses. These specially coated tubes, made of glass and steel, were designed and produced by Solel Solar Systems[10] as well as by Schott Glass in Germany.[11] Motion control was supplied by Parker Hannifin, from components by Ansco Machine Company. The plant uses 18,240 of these four-meter-long tubes. The heat transfer fluid is heated to 735 °F (391 °C). The heat is then exchanged to water to produce steam which drives a conventional turbine.[12]
Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as the southwestern United States. Using thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can be extended to meet base load needs.[13] Given Nevada's land and sun resources the state has the ability to produce more than 600 GW using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One.[14]
Nine parabolic concentrator facilities have been successfully operating in California's Mojave Desert commercially since 1984 with a combined generating capacity of 354MW for these Solar Energy Generating Systems. Other parabolic trough power plants being proposed are two 50 MW plants in Spain (see Solar power in Spain), and two 110 MW plants in Israel.[15]
It has been proposed that massive expansion of solar plants such as Nevada Solar One has the potential to provide sufficient electricity to power the entire United States.[16]
[edit] See also
- List of solar thermal power stations
- Solar power plants in the Mojave Desert
- Solar power in Nevada
- Solar thermal energy
- Renewable energy in the United States
[edit] References
- ^ Acciona web site. ACCIONA’s Nevada Solar One — Demonstrating the Commercial Competitiveness of Solar Energy
- ^ Technology News Daily. Nevada Solar One.
- ^ Utility-Scale Solar Plant Goes Online in Nevada
- ^ Arizona Utility to Buy Power from a 280-Megawatt Solar Power Plant - EnergyVortex
- ^ "Acciona Energía website". http://www.acciona-energy.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-17.
- ^ "ACCIONA invests 220 million euros in a solar thermal electric power plant in Nevada (USA)" (in Spanish). 2006-02-13. http://www.acciona.es/default.asp?x=0002060101&z=000105&item=152&bus=1. Retrieved on 2006-10-23.
- ^ Raising Arizona’s renewable power
- ^ "Reed Construction Data Visit: Reed Construction Sites Reed Connect". Las Vegas Review-Journal. http://www.reedconstructiondata.com/index.asp?layout=articleXml&xmlId=654479633. Retrieved on 2007-09-03.
- ^ Flabeg AG - solar power mirror installations
- ^ "Solel website". http://www.solel.com. Retrieved on 2008-06-17.
- ^ Schott AG - special glass tubing
- ^ "Nevada Solar One Fact Sheet" (PDF). http://www.nevadasolarone.net/themes/zen/pdfs/NSO_FactSheet_Insert.pdf. Retrieved on 2008-07-01.
- ^ Spain Pioneers Grid-Connected Solar-Tower Thermal Power p. 3.
- ^ Nevada Solar One Goes Online
- ^ Israeli company drives the largest solar plant in the world
- ^ David Comarow, "Here Comes the Sun," Kyoto Planet Sustainable Enterprise Report, Nov. 2008 Whitepaper.
[edit] External links
- Acciona Energy North America's official site
- Largest solar power plant in a generation to be built in Nevada
- Ten facts about solar thermal power
- Solar Steam at Nevada Solar One
Coordinates: 35°48.0′N 114°58.6′W / 35.8°N 114.9767°W
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