Monday August 31, 2009

Canadian Solar to build 500-megawatt solar power plant in China

news.cnet.com :

Canadian Solar has been granted rights to develop a 500-megawatt solar power plant in Baotou, Inner Mongolia, China, the company announced Wednesday [26 Aug 2009]. Baotou is a manufacturing city on the Yellow River in Inner Mongolia with a population of over 2 million. The signed agreement includes rights "to design, install, operate, and maintain" the solar power plant in Baotou. In October 2008, the US Army announced plans to build a 500-megawatt solar thermal power plant in Fort Irwin, California in an effort to reduce its annual energy costs. Canadian Solar, while founded in Canada, has subsidiaries in China that already manufacture both solar cells and solar panels.

- 500MW worth of solar power sounds like a massive installation, and on a surface area basis it most likely will be. But we're also just as likely talking about "nameplate capacity" here, which given the effective capacity or load factor of solar power being typically not much better than 20%, we're probably looking at an average of just around 100MW.

Not bad, just that even at this scale it still does not quite approach conventional fossil-based power plants or nuclear power plants which generate 700-1500MW or more with a load factor of 80-90% or better. Still, with China's built-in advantages including labour and material costs, land area and environmental factors, it just might be the right place to try to pull off something like this.

See also :

1. Solar thermal starts to shine in world's deserts
2. Pentagon considering study on space-based solar power
3. 40% efficient solar cells to be used for solar electricity
4. Solar Prius : Toyota to add solar panels to some 2009 Prius hybrid models - innovation or gimmick?

(2009-08-31 13:45:02 SGT) [Energy] Permalink

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