Re: Financial topics
Posted: Sun Nov 23, 2014 8:40 pm
And just think about the complexity of the installation, how many mirrors, how many controls, how many moving parts? And what about, insects, dust, rodents etc. it is surprising how creative they can be. and having experience with them, they can really gum up things.Higgenbotham wrote:That's interesting. They say that the sun isn't shining as much as expected, but elsewhere we read California is in a drought. This seems like the most sensible explanation:gerald wrote:Ah --- The best laid plans of mice and men --- physics and nature have laws that are a little difficult to ignore
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/ ... 7-14-33-47
HUGE SOLAR PLANT LAGS IN EARLY PRODUCTION
One of the reasons is as basic as it gets: The sun isn't shining as much as expected.
It had been projected to produce its full capacity for 8 hours a day, on average.
Operators initially expected to need steam from gas-powered boilers for an hour a day during startup. After operations began, they found they needed to keep boilers running more than four times longer - an average of 4 1/2 hours a day.
State energy regulators in August approved the plant's request to increase the natural gas it is allowed to burn by 60 percent.
It could take until 2018 for the plant backed by $1.6 billion in federal loan guarantees to hit its annual peak target,
When the $2.2 billion complex opened, Energy Department Secretary Ernest Moniz called it a "symbol of the exciting progress" in renewable energy.
hmmmmm
Faulty design.A little bit of inefficiency with mirrors can translate into a loss of power output ranging from small to significant, said Dr. Neil Fromer, executive director of the Resnick Sustainability Institute at the California Institute of Technology.
Why would it take 4 years to ramp up anything? "Just get me through the next election cycle."