From the L.A. Times:
A generating tower at the world’s largest solar energy plant was shut down Thursday after a mirror misalignment caused sunlight to burn through electrical wiring and start a small fire, according to officials.
The blaze at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert broke out around 9:30 a.m., according to the San Bernardino County Fire Department. In a Facebook post, officials said that flames could be seen near the ninth floor of the Unit 3 tower, but that they had apparently died out by the time firefighters arrived.
…
Some misaligned mirrors instead focused sunlight on a different spot, which caused the electrical cables to catch fire, San Bernardino County Fire Capt. Mike McClintock told the Associated Press.
From Computerworld:
The fire at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Systemin California forced firefighters to climb 300 feet up the tower to a water boiler that’s superheated by tens of thousands of mirror to create steam to run a turbine.
According to an AP report, San Bernardino County fire Capt. Mike McClintock said the small fire occurred about two-thirds of the way up the boiler tower. It was caused after some of the plant’s mirrors became misaligned and focused the sun’s rays on electrical cables, which caught fire.
h/t to Stand Stendera
The plant had been plagued by production problems, and state utility regulators had threatened to shut it down if it didn’t get back on track. They gave it a temporary reprieve.
It has been on track according to recent reports, but this latest setback may derail that effort.
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But sunlight is free!
/sarc
If I was a Firefighter, I would be worrying whether a miss-aligned mirror was going to fry me while I was putting out the fire!
This has become an overpriced natural gas-fired power plant with a solar bird-flaring system on the side.
“I don’t really know why a lot of people here on WUWT are against solar and wind energy.”
So pulsar why are you for it? Your reasons seem very feeble.
Do we need alternatives? No.
Does wind and solar have less environmental impact? No.
The reason is that wind and solar does not work as claimed.
I am am in favor of wind and solar when it works as claimed. We just traveled in our motor home from Las Vegas to Wallula Gap in Washington State. Saw no utility scale wind or solar along the way.
I am still waiting for any solar protect to demonstrate it is not a scam. Scam artist to not issue press release. If you dig you can find actual performance. Big failure!
There are some places where wind works. For example: http://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
I have been sailing Wallula Gap for twenty years long before the wind farms were built in the dry land wheat fields. While I am not against the wind farms, they are not needed and the environmental impact is huge compared to the nuke plant up river and the coal plant down river.
My point is that the issue is more complex and project specific.
The reason, pulsar, lot of people at WUWT are against wind and solar is ignorance. This is the same reason people are for wind and solar. Yes, both sides of debate can be wrong.
There are clearly many cases where solar makes sense
Here’s an example from Australia, where electricity prices are high, sun shines often, peak demand in day when aircon runs, demand locally increasing
http://cleantechnica.com/2016/04/19/utility-to-take-part-of-melbourne-suburb-off-grid-with-solar-storage/
Here the power company reduces local (peak) demand by providing solar plus storage for its customers… saving expansion costs and reducing what it needs to generate.
If electric prices are high in a major costal city like Melbourne then it means someone has screwed up in a major way. If electric prices are high in a major coal producing nation like Australia then it means that screw up was probably Green politics.
The distribution cost in Australia looks ridiculously high.
“It is very, very rare such a plant to drop out unexpectedly.”
I am thinking that MarkW does not have years of experience working in the control room of large nukes like have. While it is not as frequent as many years ago when I worked in the control room, it is an expected occurrence and not rare.
“one of two things happens”
Neither of those things happened. It is no more complicated cruise control. While the most economical steam plants run base loaded, other steam plants with spare capacity run in load following. Steam control valves maintain constant frequency. If load increases or a power plant drops off the grid, frequency will drop a small amount. Steam valves in the load following plants will open increasing power production running the grid to 60 hz.