Comments on: Green Jobs & Solar Power At Night: Abengoa’s 280 MW Solana CSP Plant Nearly Ready

By: Bill_Woods

Bill_Woods — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 19:46:00 +0000

“… distributed solar PV that would create more quality jobs (as opposed to short-term construction jobs) …”

Other than short-term installation jobs, what quality jobs would PV require?

By: Ecopolitidae

Ecopolitidae — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 04:48:00 +0000

I know it’s not “PC” to say anything negative about solar (especially if you’re a climate hawk/progressive/liberal like me). But it needs to be pointed out that, like any industrial development, there are many externalities from remote solar power plants and the vast industrial zones they create. Some of those include permitting costs and extended timeframes (years compared to months), scenic, cultural, environmental and wildlife impacts and transmission costs and losses and lost opportunity costs. The same $1.45B investment in point of use distributed solar would have been faster and resulted in significantly more solar and job/local benefits bang for buck. (and as for the so called “economies of scale” argument, those are already realized in the 500 kV-1 MW range). Last, but not least, industrial central solar further channels our federal tax investments to a few wealthy corporations as opposed to wide-scale distributed solar PV that would create more quality jobs (as opposed to short-term construction jobs) and spread the solar wealth around far more equitably. Once Solana goes online, the utilities won’t want any more solar for AZ so hooray for the Solana investors.

By: Bill_Woods

Bill_Woods — Mon, 03 Dec 2012 07:32:00 +0000

It’s not 24/7 — it only has 6 hours of storage, and its capacity factor is estimated to be 28%.
https://lpo.energy.gov/?projects=abengoa-solar-inc-mojave-solar

You can try contacting Abengoa
http://www.abengoasolar.com/web/en/acerca_de_nosotros/contacte_con_nosotros/
or Arizona Public Service (APS).
http://www.aps.com/main/green/Solana/default.html

By: nrmantena

nrmantena — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 14:18:00 +0000

Hello Andrew,

Nice summary of this 24/7 power station in AZ. Is it possible that someone like me,
a Professor of Electronics and Computer Technology in LA, to visit this plant at my own expense, of course? I would like to visit the plant in the third week of December’12. Can I take the liberty of asking for your help and, how do I go about contacting the right people?

Dr. Neil R. Mantena (email: nrmantena@gmail.com)
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