See:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/12/americas-largest-pv-power-plant-is-now-live
<http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2010/12/americas-largest-pv-power-plant-is-now-live?cmpid=WNL-Wednesday-December8-2010>
QUOTE:
Boulder City, Nevada, USA -- Last week the largest PV power plant in the
U.S. quietly went online in Boulder City, Nevada, about 40 miles
southeast of Las Vegas. Sempra Generation's 48-MW Copper Mountain Solar
Facility began construction in January 2010 and on Dec 1st, the company
announced that it had finished the project and the facility was now
generating electricity.
At its peak, Sempra said, more than 350 construction workers were
installing the 775,000 First Solar panels that power the plant on the
380-acre site. . . .
Here are some notes from the video below the article.
The interview conducted when plant was at 10 MW. It was subsequently
increased by a factor of 5. This can be done easily with solar, since it
is modular.
At 10 MW it took up 88 acres of solar panels. Now at 48 MW it takes up
380 acres. That's 0.11 MW/acre increased to 0.13 MW/acre.
The panels are fixed in the optimal annual output position.
At the time of the interview there were 167,400 panels, ~75 W each, with
10 panels in series, 900 V DC. They had 10, 1-MW transformers.
The field is next door to a 500 MW combined cycle power plant. They use
the infrastructure in plant to get the PV power to grid. In other words,
the 350 acre PV field produces 1/10th the power of the conventional
gas-fired plant.
Maintenance costs are low. They do not have much problem with dust
(which surprises me, in this environment).
They adjust for fluctuations in sunlight, caused by clouds, by changing
the output from the gas-fired plant.
This is one of the best places in the U.S. to generate solar electricity.
My guess is that a solar thermal plant would be more efficient and
cheaper per megawatt, but also it would require more maintenance, which
is why they went with PV.
- Jed
