See South Africa’s new giant solar power plant – photos

Wonder what the cost was for the project. 611 000 panels for 82.5MW, roughly 135 W panels (not very high). Cheapest Chinese panels are around R7/W, so R577.5 million for panels. Probably double that figure for installation, plus a few more for the actual ground, R1.5 billion?
But I guess it cost a whole lot more than that...
 
hj2k_x said:
Why does it only have a 25-year life cycle?
Click to expand...

Solar panels are continuously improving. Even if they could last 25 years, the plant wouldn't want to keep them that long.
 
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.

At 240 hectares each, this initiative would take up 13290 hectares, or 139.2 km^2. That area would cover a fair portion of Soweto.

This tech isn't ready for South Africa, not in our financial state.
 
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.

At 240 hectares each, this initiative would take up 13290 hectares, or 139.2 km^2. That area would cover a fair portion of Soweto.

This tech isn't ready for South Africa, not in our financial state.
 
When I drive down to CPT from Nam, I always pass this signboard, Paleisheuwel....now I can i press me clan with mich wisdom as we saunter past...

:whistling:
 
konfab said:
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.

At 240 hectares each, this initiative would take up 13290 hectares, or 139.2 km^2. That area would cover a fair portion of Soweto.

This tech isn't ready for South Africa, not in our financial state.
Click to expand...

We need to get away from the mindset that energy production needs to be centralised. It's a must for something like coal or nuclear, where you need the economy of scale to do it viably. But with solar, distributed generation makes more sense. Put panels on every house, let them feed back into the grid. Make every house a mini power plant. Then you suddenly space is not a problem. Renewable energy, and solar in particular, is the only economical solution for South Africa. Coal no longer makes environmental sense (and soon economic), nuclear is clean but very expensive to build. The cost of solar has halved in just the last 16 months. The trend will continue, and soon it will be cheaper than coal, so purely economically it will make more sense, never mind environmentally.

Converting to renewable energy is no longer an economic problem, but rather one of political will. If a government wants to drive towards it, they can.
 
konfab said:
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.
...
Click to expand...

Much more than that, because solar only produces a few hours per day. Coal runs 24/7.
I am not arguing against solar. It is (part of) the future.
 
konfab said:
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.

At 240 hectares each, this initiative would take up 13290 hectares, or 139.2 km^2. That area would cover a fair portion of Soweto.

This tech isn't ready for South Africa, not in our financial state.
Click to expand...

but remember.. Medupi power output x 0 is 0... well yeah, it's finally producing now..

Would rather have power now, than no power at all...

Also, health benefit of not burning coal..

I read this report about a dutch wind turbine company... 100 days from date of order to date produce power..
 
Skerminkel said:
Much more than that, because solar only produces a few hours per day. Coal runs 24/7.
I am not arguing against solar. It is (part of) the future.
Click to expand...

A company called SolarOne uses solar energy to produce 24/7 from what I understand.. using molten salt?
 
rbarryza said:
Converting to renewable energy is no longer an economic problem, but rather one of political will. If a government wants to drive towards it, they can.
Click to expand...
It is an economic problem. It simply is too expensive. Building one big station costs less for everyone than building a million rooftop installations.

Skerminkel said:
Much more than that, because solar only produces a few hours per day. Coal runs 24/7.
I am not arguing against solar. It is (part of) the future.
Click to expand...
They need to do much, much more than that on the efficiency side of things... and the on storage side of things... and on the network stability side of things...
Once you sort out all of those relatively minor challenges. I am going out on a limb here, but I would say economical compact fusion is more likely to happen than a grid entirely dependent on renewable energy.

TheJman said:
but remember.. Medupi power output x 0 is 0... well yeah, it's finally producing now..

Would rather have power now, than no power at all...

Also, health benefit of not burning coal..

I read this report about a dutch wind turbine company... 100 days from date of order to date produce power..
Click to expand...
1 turbine at Medupi is producing 90% of the power that the entire solar capacity of South Africa is currently producing. And it can do it at night as well. Imagine that.


These things are always a trade off. People want clean, reliable power at a low price. That is not going to happen. It is like asking someone to develop a good piece of software, very quickly for a low price. You have to compromise somewhere.
 
TheJman said:
A company called SolarOne uses solar energy to produce 24/7 from what I understand.. using molten salt?
Click to expand...

They just store the energy in the form of heat and generate electricity later. It is like having a massive battery on site. The actual energy capturing is still liimited to hours of direct sunlight.
 
konfab said:
82.5 Megawatts, so you would need about 57 more to start being able to replace a station such as Medupi.

At 240 hectares each, this initiative would take up 13290 hectares, or 139.2 km^2. That area would cover a fair portion of Soweto.

This tech isn't ready for South Africa, not in our financial state.
Click to expand...
Meanwhile in other parts of the world:
New Record Set for World's Cheapest Solar, Now Undercutting Coal
Developers bid as little as 2.99 cents a kilowatt-hour to develop 800 megawatts of solar-power projects for the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority
Click to expand...
See
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ndercut-coal-with-another-record-set-in-dubai
 
cool

just need them in space and perfect wireless power transmission or optical power transmission
 
konfab said:
It is an economic problem. It simply is too expensive. Building one big station costs less for everyone than building a million rooftop installations.
Click to expand...

If the government allowed feeding back into the grid with compensation , as in quite a few other countries , I am sure a lot of private people would put up their own panels. Not to mention businesses renting roofs to put up panels and sell back electricity as a business.
 
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