Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun sets

Nice!

 

This sounds very promising.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

It's not the world's first, and it's only 5MW. Still, it's progress. We just need more and more of them!

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Cool!

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

So if I say that Sicily has a solar plant that runs in the dark to the larger population, how many responses will I get telling me I'm clueless?

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

good question... hmmm.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

There was a 10MW solar power station in Southern California in 1995 that used molten salt. That predates the new "first" one by 15 years.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

was

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

is. I think the difference is that this system doesn't seem to use oils to transfer the heat to water to make steam. They just skip the oils and only have a molten salt system. Seems fraught to me. Submarine nerds will be reminded of the reactors on the Alfa Class attack boats... i.e what happens if the molten salt freezes (if the temp drops below about 425F)?

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Solar Two used a molten salt, Solar One used oil and water.

Did Solar Two still have a oil loop someplace in the system? The description I read sounded like a liquid salt circulated through the tower.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

This is time shifting. I find it encouraging that agencies/companies are working on the problem even though, in general, intermittent energy production is decades away from being a large enough fraction of the grid mix to require this kind of storage.

It is certainly awesome engineering.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

The storage makes the plants more profitable, so there's a strong incentive to pursue the installation of such systems.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

There is also an advantage over the shorter term (minutes or hours during the day). They are able to deliver a more consistent level of power to the grid which will make it easier to integrate them into the overall electrical system.

After thinking about it a bit, the short term time shifting to smooth out daytime power delivery seems more important than being able to generate power at night.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

The daytime power is worth more than nigthtime power, for one. These plants can also have a NG backup so that they can have very high production factors.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Please explain.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

I think others mentioned the difference between the CA and Sicily plant, but the CA ISO has some pretty charts showing demand, predicted demand and renewable generation, including solar thermal (unfortunately does not seem to include the 615MW of PV that is installed on the grid).

California ISO: System Status

You can see that while solar power tapers off once it gets dark, it does produce some power through midnight. Presumably newer CSPs like the one in Sicily can do even better.

If you look at the demand charts you can see how being able to shift production to mid afternoon is important in CA since that's when demand peaks. One would think that aiming PV panels a bit to the west would be desirable to reduce that peak. For example, my 3.24 kW DC system typically peaks around 2.6-2.7 kW just before 1pm on a sunny day. By the time the grid peaks at 4-5pm the system is generating 1.5-2.0 kW.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Having the ability to store energy means that production can be shifted without losing all the energy. For example, this means that should the solar plant be required to shut down during the day for a bit, they will still be able to store the heat for generation later, thus making the plant more productive and profitable.

Compared to a PV plant, a PV plant can not shut down in the middle of the day without throwing away potentially generated power.

Admittedly, at current grid penetration levels, this isn't a problem for solar but can be a problem for wind in areas where grid transmission isn't high enough to move all the generated electricity to areas which could use it. Happened in North Texas earlier this year - so much wind power was being generated that they couldn't export that some wind farms had to reduce output. They are working on upgrading the grid in north Texas so that won't be an issue in the future.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Thanks for the link, they have added lot since I last looked at their site.

 

Re: Sicily's new molten salt Solar Power Plant continues to produce electricity even after the sun s

Having a higher production factor (the amount of time that the plant is running, producing electricity) simply means that you can sell more electricity than you otherwise could. Or, as Drees pointed out, you can keep the plant running even if the collection system has to be taken offline for some reason.