Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t JoNova – What do you say when the government demands to know what happened to all the public money they lent to your failed solar business?
‘Fast-moving clouds’: How CS Energy’s Kogan Creek Solar Boost project failed
MAY 21 2017
Mark Solomons
It was supposed to supply cheaper, greener energy to up to 5000 homes but after six years and tens of millions of dollars, a cutting-edge solar energy project has produced nothing other than a large taxpayer-funded pile of scrap.
Three thousand solar panels sit unused on a concrete pad after the pioneering Kogan Creek Solar Boost project was shelved due to rusting pipes and “rapidly moving clouds”.
Now the site’s manager alleges the Commonwealth and Queensland governments breached their contractual requirements by never inspecting the doomed $105 million project.
…
Who could have predicted that clouds might scud rapidly across a subtropical sky, or that non-stainless steam pipes might be at risk of going rusty?
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
From the SMH article;
“The plan had been to use thousands of mirrors to focus solar energy to pre-heat steam used to drive power-generating turbines.”
Pre-heat steam?
Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) seems to me is overall too complicated to even bother with. Such complexities to boil and make steam, and then the inefficiency of the steam cycle without using the wasted thermal residue heat at the end of the day which requires gas to preheat the next morning. Probably better to just use simple PV panels if you are wanting to make electricity. Too many moving parts and plumbing for CSP, and I wonder why it is ever done?
The one thing that does make sense is simple solar thermal heating. That is a huge growth industry in rural China and India for not only domestic hot water but space heating as well. I use it sometimes when out in the wilderness with just a few hundred feet of black rubber 3/4″ garden hose coiled up in an enclosure using gravity feed water from a small creek. If you had to heat water like that at 10 cents a Kw/hr, you would spend a fair bit on electricity bills. I think a lot more of this passive solar hot water should have been adopted instead of the solar PV rooftop. There would have been far more energy saved on domestic hot water and space heating in the applicable seasons than what solar PV creates year round. It just doesn’t make sense to use solar power to make electricity, and then use the electricity to heat water or air. Maybe the one thing that makes sense for roof top solar PV is an air conditioning load when the electrons are being used immediately to run the air conditioner during the day time when it is hot outside.
Spot on Ron.
Oval black PVC (sorry polyolefin) tube coil on roof.
Free (almost) warm/hot water.
Ten times as ‘green’ as PV solar.
$1 per metre.
$5 electronics for sophisticated control.
$35- DIY plumb-in kit.
No scientists/researchers.
No tax subsidies.
No politicians.
No green lobbyists.
No funding corruption.
So when do you think this will get off the ground?
It already has, but mainly only in the third world where they don’t have anything else, or this is so cheap and effective, they install this to save money. We could do it here too in the first world, but gets more complicated with building codes and high labor rates for installation. I suppose it is just a failure of imagination, not realizing that solar thermal is more productive and a lot less expensive than solar PV.
There is far more profit doing this as compared to the same solar PV to make electricity to make the same hot water for domestic or space heating. If I were building a new house, I would design the roof for maximum solar exposure and install mainly solar thermal hot water, and some solar PV, but only for a battery back-up giant UPS to run a few key circuits like fridge/freezer and TV/internet etc, to save a little on grid hydro but mainly for back-up in case of grid failure. I would skip the solar/grid connection all together because on an annual basis for the measly Kw/hr produced, it doesn’t really justify the expense of the grid intertie. It is unfortunate that the subsidies distorted things so much, although in some ways that is what the brought the price down in general due to such global demand. They will get more efficient, and probably cheaper in the future, although they will always be subject to less than 22%-23% annual capacity factor just based upon having only 5-6 hours of peak sufficient sunlight per day for maximum output. For 13-14 hours a day on a yearly average, they produce nothing at all even if there was not a cloud in the sky.
loved your prior comments:-)
and yeah i use a black poly 20litre drum to heat water when my hws fails
the black pipe is also a great pool heater, ive seen people do well with it.
“I wonder why it is ever done? ”
Complicated is not a criteria for making electricity. The design of a modern reactor is much more complicated today because computing power allows it. However, this resutlts is getting twice as much power per ton of uranium.
If you look at PV it is very complicated per kwh produced.
The reason solar is done at all is idiots who do not make electricity think it is a good idea. Griff of example. Solar is not a good environmental choice. Worse than coal.
“The one thing that does make sense is simple solar thermal heating. That is a huge growth industry in rural China and India for not only domestic hot water but space heating as well. ”
Again it is neither simple or make sense. Where you solar hot water collectors in China is 4 story apartment buildings with business on the first floor. I did not see any single family dwellings in China. What dirty rotten commies are trying to do is move the rural population into 10 story or greater bigger city apartment buildings.
“I use it sometimes ….. If you had to heat water like that at 10 cents a Kw/hr, you would spend a fair bit on electricity bills. ”
Idiot! What we called a Hollywood shower in the navy (long hot showers using lots of water) costs about 25 cents at 10 cents/kwh. My first ship was a WWII vintage oil fired destroyer. I shared two shower with 30 others who worked in the engine and boiler rooms, not that we could take shower when at sea. One of my responsibilities was running the evaps. Before coming into port when we had enough water for the boiler, I would let water quality slip and have to dump condensate to the bilge. If the hose to the bilge just happened to be raised to above the deck plating and have a shower nozzle and 30 guys lined up during the night, it was just a coincidence that we had clean hair and did not smell bad.
Years later before I go out of the navy, I was an officer on a new nuke ship. I shared a shower with one person. With a nuke reactor, making water and making it hot is not a problem. I did not take navy showers.
I installed a steam shower in out last house. You do not want to know what a 30 amp GFI breaker costs. My goal in life is great showers not saving the planet. We all ready did that.
Ron I have placed vinyl waterbed pillow tubes, 6′ long, 2 of them, on my Subaru roof, filled with cold hose water in am afternarriving at a remote building site..can’t drive with full tubes! left in car in sun to heat the tubes, at 2-3PM water was almost too hot to shower under.. a short hose connects from pillow screw cap, to shower head on other end. Short people can stand under the shower, tall can sit on a stool. Those solar, hanging bag, camp shower kits do the same thing. you need trees, or tripod tho.
In the 60s didn’t all hippies curl garden hoses on van roof and have hot water? In PacNW in late 1800s a metal, gravity fed, water tank (laid on the side with all fittings for use horizontally, placed in attic (with glazed opening to sun) and hot water flowed to kitchen and or bath…I own one of these delightful old tanks!
There are plans for building batch solar water heater systems using the inside core tank from an old regular water heater.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm
Who could have predicted that clouds might scud rapidly across a subtropical sky, or that non-stainless steam pipes might be at risk of going rusty?
Try: computermodels.
Ron I was being a bit sarcastic above. I have some friends with evacuated-tube (Rinnai is popular) and some with flat panel types. But as you say black poly is very effective and could have been more popular if an optimised low cost tube had been developed. I take your point about building regs and I imagine that’s in relation to water quality. I’ve seen some good poly tube systems for heating swimming pools. I certainly agree overall heating water is cost effective compared to PV full-life cost/benefit.
The use of the terms “cutting-edge” and “pioneering” in such a short description suggests that the density of usage of these terms may be useful in robotic translation of promoter BS as warning signs etc..
Follow the money
Bryan A <“An Excuse is nothing more than the Skin of a Lie stuffed with Reason”
I AM STEALING THIS NOW! love it. The longer I live and the more I observe adults of all ages and abilities, the more lame excuses they continue to give.