New Spain solar power plant can run 24 hours

[Kablooie]

A new power plant developed by Torresol Energy in Spain has claimed to offer once and for all a reliable 24-hour solution to solar energy.

During the day, energy is stored by heating up large tanks of molten salt composed of a mixture of 60 percent potassium nitrate and 40 percent sodium nitrate. The molten salt is able to retain a very large amount of heat -- enough to drive the plant for 15 hours without sunlight. Although molten salt has been used in other plants to store heat energy, the efficiency achieved by Torresol is new.

The plant has a production capacity of 19.9 Megawatts and although this is relatively small as far as power plants go, the fact that the plant runs continuously means that the effective production is comparable to a traditional 50 Megawatt solar power plant.

http://news.discovery.com/tech/new-solar-plant-shines-even-at-night-110624.html#mkcpgn=rssnws1

[rurallib]

1. how big of a power plant does it take to run a city of 50,000?

I see these numbers and I have always wanted to put them in perspective.
Is there a table someplace that would give an idea how many windmills / solar plants = what electricity?

[Kablooie]

4. Roughly, 50 megawatts could run around 25,000 homes.

[rurallib]

5. thanks.

[PoliticAverse]

6. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_station

Scroll down to "Typical Power Output" for the power capabilities of different types of plants.

And also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_farms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power

[rurallib]

9. you do not know how much I appreciate this

Now I have some context for all the numbers I see floating around.

[txlibdem]

10. It depends on where in the world you live

Here is a chart from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

Regional energy use (kWh/hab)<20><21>
.....................kWh/capita
.....................1990.......2008
USA..............89,021.....87,216
EU-27............40,240.....40,821
Middle East......19,422.....34,774
China.............8,839.....18,608
Latin America....11,281.....14,421
Africa............7,094......7,792
India.............4,419......6,280
***Note: this includes all energy forms, electricity, oil, coal, etc. Read the link for a better explanation.

If you live in the EU nations, that solar power plant will provide power for twice as many families as in the USA for example. But don't look at the chart and think we should all strive for India's per capita energy usage. Solar power alone has the ability to supply 4 times the energy usage totals worldwide. Wind power can supply more than 100% of worldwide total energy needs, as can geothermal until growth exceeds its capacity. That is only 3 of the renewable energy options we have available, each of which can provide for the total energy needs of the world today.

From the same source:
"In 2008, total worldwide energy consumption was 474 exajoules (474×1018 J=132,000 TWh). This is equivalent to an average annual power consumption rate of 15 terawatts (1.504×1013 W)<1> The potential for renewable energy is: solar energy 1600 EJ (444,000 TWh), wind power 600 EJ (167,000 TWh), geothermal energy 500 EJ (139,000 TWh), biomass 250 EJ (70,000 TWh), hydropower 50 EJ (14,000 TWh) and ocean energy 1 EJ (280 TWh).<8>"

PS, sorry for the ugly chart. DU formatting makes it difficult to line up columns... :shrug:
PPS, with energy efficiency improvements these numbers can be reduced in the US by electric cars, LED lighting, geothermal heating and cooling and "Passive House" building techniques.

• Passive House reduces energy usage by 80-90%
  
• Geothermal heating/cooling reduces energy usage by around 80%
  
• LEDs and EVs use only 15-20% of the energy that existing options do.

[Kolesar]

11. Regional energy use (kWh/hab)

Regional energy use (kWh/hab)<20><21>
.....................kWh/capita 
...................1990.......2008 
USA..............89,021.....87,216 
EU-27............40,240.....40,821 
Middle East......19,422.....34,774
China.............8,839.....18,608 
Latin America....11,281.....14,421
Africa............7,094......7,792 
India.............4,419......6,280 

[x] Check here if you want to format your message in plain
text. Use for posting code snippets.

The two of us buy about 5000 kWh of electricity per year.  I
would have to decode a gas bill to figure our heating
requirement.  

Our cars use about 600 gallons of gas/year.  

I understand that half of electricity consumption in Ohio is
industrial, commericial, and government use.

[txlibdem]

13. Regional energy use (kWh/hab)

Thanks for the tip!

Looks like Texans use more energy than folks in your part of the country.

[PoliticAverse]

2. Video of construction...

http://www.torresolenergy.com/TORRESOL/detalle_video.html?url_video=http://geanet.ondemand.flumotion.com/geanet/ondemand/sener/Torresol_2010_Ingles.flv&title_video=Gemasolar%20plant%20video%20(2010)&KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=490&width=480&buffertime=10&autoPlayVideo=true&modal=true

[damntexdem]

3. Sounds good, but we should take this with a grain of salt.

But it does sound like plant production achieves a good nitrate. ;-)

[FBaggins]

7. A big step in the right direction, but the key is still "can" run 24 hrs.

That's after a sunny day.

There are still plenty of times during the year when the plant won't produce any electricity. This will be particularly true during the shorter daylight periods of the winter months and in cloudy weather.

Note that the company claims an expected 110 GW/h per year. They expect it to provide no power at all about 25% of the time and a total production that implies about 2/3rds net availability.

Still a really impressive statistic, and since the storage doesn't require a second generator (as with many renewables' storage options), the final cost (once these become more common) shouldn't be as expensive.

[JohnWxy]

8. very cool. Recommended!

[jpak]

12. NNNOOOOooooo!!!!1111

:D

:toast:

:thumbsup: