Guest Post by David Middleton
Great News! Siemens will generate an 18% return on a project that will have a negative return on investment (-9%)… All at the taxpayers’ expense!
At first glance, this looked too good to be true…
White Sands breaks ground on Army’s largest solar array
April 26, 2012
By Ms Miriam U Rodriguez (ATEC)
White Sands Missile Range leaders came out to break ground and to commemorate the start of a renewable energy project at the site of the new Solar Photo Voltaic Array Project, the Army’s largest solar array, April 19 on WSMR.
A 42-acre tract of land located about ¼ mile northeast of the Las Cruces Gate next to main post will be the site where 4.115 MW of single-axis vertical azimuth-tracking ground-mounted solar Photo Voltaic panels will be installed.
[…]
In conjunction with the 4.115 MW project, WSMR will also be installing a 350 kW solar PV Carport at the parking lot for the Headquarters Building 100.
[…]
The total cost of both projects is $16.8M with a cost of $3.77 per Watt.
The solar project is being funded within an Energy Savings Performance Contract (ESPC) utilizing an Energy Services Agreement (ESA) that the Huntsville Army Corp of Engineers (COE) has awarded to Siemens on behalf of WSMR. Under the awarded task order, Siemens will maintain and operate the equipment and will provide the energy to WSMR. This agreement is for a period of 25 years. The simple payback is 18.1 years. The energy being provided will cost the same that WSMR is currently paying the local utility company which is a blended rate of $0.08/kWh.
[…]
$3.77 per Watt is less than $4 million per MW. That’s a big deal. Solar PV usually runs from $5 to $8 million per MW of installed capacity and $0.08/kWh is dirt cheap by solar standards. $0.08/kWh is only 25% more expensive than the levelized generation cost of natural gas-fired electricity generation.
On top of all that, the Army didn’t have to pay any of the $16.8 million construction cost. Siemens would recoup its costs by selling the electricity to the Army at the current market rate. What a deal for the taxpayers! Green energy for the same price as dirty old energy!
It turns out that it actually is too good to be true…
Corps of Engineers completes Army’s largest solar array installation
January 22, 2013
By James W. Campbell, USACE
WHITE SANDS MISSILE RANGE, N.M. (Jan. 22, 2013) — The largest solar power system in the U.S. Army is coming online at White Sands Missile Range, N.M., and officials gathered Jan. 16, to mark the occasion with a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The Energy Savings Performance Contract, or ESPC, project, awarded and managed by the U.S. Army Engineering and Support Center, Huntsville, provides the sprawling desert base with a new 4.465 megawatt solar photovoltaic system…
[…]
Along with being the largest solar project, there’s another first in how the system at White Sands Missile Range was funded.
“We used an Energy Services Agreement for the photovoltaic equipment along with the ESPC concept which was a first for the Army,” said Will Irby, Huntsville Center ESPC Program Manager.
An ESA is an arrangement whereby a third party owns, operates and maintains the power generation system and provides electricity to the customer. This third-party ownership mechanism allowed for a significant tax grant from that reduced the project cost by $6.1M, Irby said.
[…]
The taxpayers paid 27% of Siemens’ construction costs. The actual cost was $5.13 per Watt, $5.1 million per MW. A natural gas-fired plant costs $700,000 to $900,000 per MW. Since the taxpayers footed 27% of the up-front costs, Siemens can generate about an 18% annual return selling the electricity to the Army for $0.08/kWh…
(My return on investment calculation does not apply a discount rate or any other “time-value of money” measures.)
As if the economics of this weren’t bad enough, the 4.1 MW solar PV array covers 42 acres. That’s a generating density of 0.11 MW per acre. Natural gas-fired plants generate more than 6 MW per acre…
U.S. Army Dedicates 4.1 LCPV Solar Power Array at White Sands
By Renewable Energy World Editors
January 18, 2013
New Hampshire, USA — On Wednesday, January 16th, the U.S. Army dedicated its largest solar photovoltaic system at White Sands Missile Range, in a ceremony led by Brig. Gen. Gwen Bingham, White Sands commander. Bingham was joined by Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment for the ceremony and Judy Marks, president and CEO of Siemens Government Technologies. (see photo at the end of the article.)
“I came here about four months ago talking about how White Sands is a national treasure and now we can feel proud that we’re really on the environmental edge,” Bingham said. “It takes passion to do something like this. I’m just excited about the journey that will lie ahead.”
[…]
If “White Sands is a national treasure,” wouldn’t you think that the gov’t might want to reduce, rather than expand, the footprint of electricity generation for the facility?
The new solar PV arrays are expected to provide up to 10% of the facility’s electricity demand at a full cost of $22.9 million and will cover 42 acres of “national treasure.” A couple of 7 MW natural-gas fired reciprocating engines could provide 100% of the facility’s electrical needs at a cost of $5.6 million and probably only occupy 2-3 acres of “national treasure.”
Natural gas prices would have to rise to ~$8/mcf (mmBTU) for the natural gas-fired reciprocating engines’ levelized cost to become as expensive as the solar LCVP installation. US natural gas prices are not expected to rise to any where near $8/mcf by 2020.
Unless the Obama Administration finds a way to shut down fracking and kill the shale boom, the real price of natural gas is unlikely to increase very much at all over the next 10-15 years.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Lets see, what do they do at White Sands Missile TEST facility…
What could possibly go wrong…
Let’s see how well the panels stand up to the dusty environment.
Gen. Gwen Bingham
Katherine Hammack
Judy Marks
Hmmmmm.
We have a similar sized eyesore at the Air Force. Academy. You have this pretty view destroyed by a giant eyesore. That they will tear down in a few years when we get more efficient technology.
“How Green Was My Bankruptcy? U. S. Army Edition.” More mission creep, beyond Meals on Wheels International.
Remember The Posse Comitatus Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1385 passed on June 18, 1878. Any use of the Armed Forces under Title 10 at the direction of the President will offend the Constitutional Law and Public Law prohibiting such action unless declared by the President of the United States and approved by Congress. Any infringement will be problematic for political and legal reasons.
‘A couple of 7 MW natural-gas fired reciprocating engines could provide 100% of the facility’s electrical needs at a cost of $5.6 million and probably only occupy 2-3 acres of “national treasure.”’
I bet they would work at night, too.
AF Academy eyesore installation; more efficient at what, measured how?
The Solar Constant is ~1350 W·m^-2, equivalent to about 5 kWh·m^-2·day^-1 Who fails to do arithmetic is doomed, not least to failure.
Bloke down the pub says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:58 am
Let’s see how well the panels stand up to the dusty environment.
——————–
As this falls apart you will never hear another word about it.
cn
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Another case of something sounding too good to be true proving to be really bad. Large solar just doesn’t work, and it likely never will. Solar energy is just too diffuse and intermittent.
Don Allen says:
January 24, 2013 at 3:59 am (Edit)
Gen. Gwen Bingham
Katherine Hammack
Judy Marks
Hmmmmm.
—————————————————-
Yes Don, my thoughts too. I see that Panetta is about to allow the girls into combat action soon as well.
Proof of concept on something whose concept has already been proved seems a bit bizarre. Gesture politics I guess, plus a bit of sneaky accounting.
Anyway, spending all this tax money on something that cannot really prove anything other than it works seems a bit silly at this point. Particularly as there are many niche installations around the world that shows it works in a limited way.
I understand that even as PV cells fall in price over time that won’t have a huge impact on overall costs as the underpinning infrastructure is all very old and stable technology. Mind you , as Bloke says, we will at least get a decent handle on maintenance costs and degradation over time parameters.
I got all excited to see this was tagged “New Hampshire” and less so when I found it’s just for the byline:
When I found the domain is owned by PennWell Corp in Tulsa OK, I figured there might be a magazine based in the great tech publishing town of Peterborough, NH. Indeed, while http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/magazine/renewable-energy-world/about lists a UK mailing address, it also lists several NH phone #s. I picked one at random and got to http://www.reversenumberdatabase.com/searchResults?phone=603-925-3211 which says it’s a landline owned by Freedom Ring Communications, LLC.
I didn’t bother to dig any deeper. I did find some other stories by the Editors with a New Hampshire byline, and concluded that 1) it wasn’t a typo, and 2) White Sands remains in New Mexico.
Reblogged this on This Got My Attention and commented:
It seems the Big Government know-it-alls and especially those in the military can always find a new way to waste the money they take from us. Thanks, O, and thanks too to all you Big Government spenders in Congress. How’s all that Big Government, Daddy-Knows-Best working out for us?
White Sands National Monument is naturally expanding and has little need of preservation. But most of your other points are good ones.
Everything outside the monument area is normal, worthless scrub desert. The monument area is naturally occurring gypsum sands that has its own unique ecology due to the alkali “sands”.
Near Edwards AFB, there’s a heliostat array that I would wager has some of the same good intentions behind it.
But Siemens does know how to make simple calculations.
I know that the USA is even more car(auto)-oriented than we here are in UK.
But the thought of a solar powered carport quite boggles my mind. Why does a carport need to be powered for anything? To keep the autos nice and cosy in the winter and cool them in the summer? Poor things.
The cost analysis for an uncontrollable energy source such as solar is not accurate nor complete until the side effect costs are included. They occur because there is a need to maintain
backup generating capacity : the sun doesn’t shine all the time and sometimes none of the time –
this means that such capacity cannot replace existing capacity,which costs money to operate even if it never generates any power at all. Only generation fuel costs can be eliminated by solar.
And often fuel is required to spin the backup generators, even though they are producing no power. In effect, money is being paid both to the solar provider and the backup capacity provider for the same power.
How’s the wildlife under the panels doing now? Shouldn’t WWF & Sierra Club be concerned? Isn’t this a scar on Mother Gaia?
I am extremely familiar with that area. Lots of sagebrush, some mesquite, etc. fire ecology.
I assume they will have use herbicides to keep the area from over growing. and some sort
of fire protection…
“Happiness is a Warm Fast Breeder.”-old Hanford Area T-shirt..
David Banks,
“We have a similar sized eyesore at the Air Force. Academy. You have this pretty view destroyed by a giant eyesore. That they will tear down in a few years when we get more efficient technology.”
No need to tear it down. This is at a missile test facility. Assuming it survives that long without being destroyed by an errant missile they will just use it for target practice.
Not a green friendly project.
http://www.globalwarmingskeptics.info/thread-1954-post-12245.html#pid12245
These are pivoting panels? Wasn’t there an earlier post that pivoting panels don’t hold up / work as well as static panels due to issues with the motors and power usage for moving the panels?
What’s the ROI on a hand grenade or a bullet? Nothing the Army does returns a profit, so why should this?
Bob Rogers says:
January 24, 2013 at 6:25 am
“What’s the ROI on a hand grenade or a bullet? Nothing the Army does returns a profit, so why should this?”
Great argument, let me finish it for you: Dollars are free. You can print as many as you need.
Make no mistake about — much of the US military’s spending on green energy sources has nothing to do with any military needs and everything to do with promote this administration’s green agenda. It’s another form of taxpayer funded subsidy.
If you’re deployed to somewhere like a remote installation in Afghanistan, it makes sense to use as much alternative energy sources as possible. It’s extremely expensive to haul fuel into remote sites and reducing the amount of anything we haul in reduces risk to our troops.
But we don’t need solar installations at Nellis Air Force base in Nevada that will never generate enough electricity to pay for themselves and the Navy doesn’t need biodiesel that costs up to $48 a gallon and neither does the Air Force need biofuels that cost up to $59 a gallon.
I see – and how will the electricity for the U S Army be provided at night..?