GTalk

Also last week, Southern California Edison selected BrightSource Energy to build seven solar power plants for up to 1,300 MWs of total power in the world’s largest utility scale solar deal.  The underlying technology is thousands of mirrors reflecting sunlight to a boiler atop a tower to produce steam and power a conventional turbine.   We, among others, were taken by surprise that solar/steam power would still provide such a large role in the expansion of alternative energy, but at the end of the day, utilities prize the lowest cost of delivered watt and a reliable technology.  It is also very interesting to note these installations will primarily augment existing power plants during the daytime peak, avoiding the need for storage.  With respect to the energy storage solutions we discussed earlier, there are two other aspects to consider: 1) In a modernized grid the storage need not be coincident with the energy production; it may be best for energy storage to be situated close to the end-users and capable of drawing from multiple alternative energy sources and 2) Storage, like the SC Edison project discussed above, has the ability to provide load-matching and avoid construction of additional power plants by storing energy during off-peak to augment the grid as needed, a fundamental concept behind the operation of hydroelectric dams.  Perhaps the lesson to be taken is that while solar does not require storage to be relevant, storage does not necessarily require solar to be relevant either.