Nuts and Bolts of Technology:
Closer Look at
Utility-Scale Solar Power
January 26, 2011
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BSE Overview
Proven, Environmentally-Responsible Technology:
Successful Pilot and Demonstration Projects:
 Highest temperature and pressure solar steam
 SEDC Pilot generating ~100% of modeled energy at
 Dry-cooling reduces water use
~97% availability; exceeded 6MW design point by ~20%
 Chevron Demonstration Solar-to-Steam for Enhanced Oil
 Environmentally-friendly design
Recovery (EOR) nearly complete (solar field 95% erected,
tower erection complete; boiler erection in process, SFINCS
control system onsite)
World Class Team:
 Includes the key senior managers of Luz Int’l., which
designed & built over 350 MW of solar thermal plants
in the 1980’s
Robust Commercial Pipeline & Project Dev.:
 Project development team with over 20GW power
 2.6GWs of signed PPAs with PG&E and SCE
projects developed, constructed, and managed
 Ivanpah ~400MW Electric for PG&E and SCE
 Bechtel as EPC and Investor
 Siemens Turbine/Riley Boiler
 $1.37B DOE loan guarantee
 ITC cash grant eligible
 NRG Energy lead project investor
 Shortlisted for a project in Israel
 Selected and approved for a project in Crete
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Luz Power Tower (LPT 550) Technology
Boiler
steam
water
Heliostats
Power Block
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LPT: Technology to Meet Evolving Performance Needs
Solar Capture:
Flexible Field &
Fine Control
Thermal energy is
delivered at the
precise times and
quantities needed
in each season
through:
• Optimized Solar
Field Layout
• Fine Control of Tens
of Thousands of
Heliostats
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Thermal Energy:
Multiple Modes
Inexpensive,
highperformance
thermal
storage
High-Performance
Versatile Turbine
State-of-the-art
turbine efficiently
provides multiple
products:
• High quantities of
energy (& RPS)
Hightemperature,
high-pressure
steam
Flexible, highquality steam
+
High-performance
conventional
turbine
=
• Reliability services
Natural gas
augmentation
RPS and
Reliability
(RA, frequency &
voltage support,
reactive power, spin,
ramping, AGC)
Dispatchable,
Shaped Output
+
Grid Support /
Reliability Services
+
Maximum RPS
(w/o tradeoffs)
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Low-impact Design : Fitting the Natural Environment
 Plant Design:
 Maximizes retention of existing vegetation, land contours & natural
features
 Solar field does not require concrete foundations, and grading and leveling
is extremely limited
• Mirrors on pylons placed directly
in the ground to fit natural
contours of area, without need
for foundations
• Vegetation in the solar field will
co-exist below the mirrors,
trimmed so mirrors can track the
sun
• Soils and vegetation disturbed
during construction and
operation will be restored
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Low Impact Design – Limited Water Use
 Water Use: Dry-cooling, Conservation & Closed-loop recycling
 Uses air instead of water to condense steam
 95% less water use when compared to CSP
using traditional wet-cooling
 Uses 25 times less water than
competing trough technologies
 Uses less than 100 acre feet per year;
equal to 300 homes worth of water
 Closed-loop steam cycle &
conservation measures further reduce usage
 Efficiency trade-off: Additional costs incurred by using
dry-cooling are merited by environmental benefits
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Wet CSP/Conventional Cooling vs. Dry CSP Cooling
0.90
0.85
0.80
0.72
Gallons/KWh
0.70
0.60
0.5
0.50
0.40
0.30
0.19
0.20
0.10
0.03
0.00
Trough Wet Cooling*
Nuclear^
Coal^
Combined Cycle Gas^ Tower Dry Cooling*
*Source: California Energy Commission
^Source: Nuclear, Coal and Combined Cycle numbers from World Economic Forum report - Thirsty Energy: Water and Energy in the 21st Century
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