India plans to build the world's largest floating solar farm

Image by Chesky @Shutterstock

The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), which is setting up the 50 MW solar power project, is currently undertaking a survey of the land on the banks of the Kallada river and hopes to place solar panels over the water bodies spread over nearly 250 acres in the region.This floating solar power technology was developed by India's Renewable Energy College. World's biggest floating solar farm will be built in kollam, Kerala. A state which is blessed with 44 rivers and equal number of lagoons .But the state faces intense energy needs.

The 250 acres where the proposed plant is to be set up was once a beautiful terrain through which river has flown with all her turbulence. And then the land mafia came and mined all the sand for the construction purpose. The flow became unbalanced and the terrain becomes flooded. For all these years residents of the place have found a sparking idea to meet the power requirements for about 50000 homes. Solar panels have to be floated on the water and they need to be anchored firmly on the ground to avoid their  motion on the surface of the water.It is estimated that 5 acres of land are required to produce 1 megawatt of solar power. The Kollam solar project would require 250 acres. $100 million project  will be implemented in the next 2-3 years. The infrastructure and unit cost for floating solar panels is way less compared to land installed ones.

The ecology of the water body is not likely to be affected much and it will also reduce evaporation, thus helping preserve water levels during extreme summer. Solar panels installed on land face reduction of yield as the ground heats up. When such panels are installed on a floating platform, the heating problem is solved to a great extent.

 
Currently the world’s largest floating solar power plant is located in Japan, where a 1.2 MW float power plant was set up by West Holdings Group over a reservoir in Okegawa City.

Thank you Likeswagon for providing us with this information

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India to Build First Offshore Wind Power Project in Gujarat

OFFSHORE WIND POWER TURBINE

The Indian government has announced that it has signed an agreement to build the country’s first offshore wind power project off the coast of Gujarat. The 100 MW project will act as a demonstration for possible further expansion of offshore wind capacity in India.

The Memorandum of Understanding to set up a Joint Venture Company for the purpose of undertaking this offshore wind project was signed on Wednesday by India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, National Institute of Wind Energy, and a consortium of partners.

Shri Piyush Goyal, India’s Minister for Power, Coal and New & Renewable Energy, was on hand to witness the signing, and described it as a great opportunity in the development of renewable energy resources in the country.

The Indian Government will provide subsidy for surveys and studies, as well as obtaining clearances involved for the implementation of the project.

According to the press release published by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, this demonstration project “will certainly provide enough learning to move into this sector by taking up similar viable projects in [the] future.”

Shri Piyush Goyal also noted that, given the country’s 7,600 kilometer long coastline, the opportunities for scaling up such a market “are humongous”.

In the same press release it was mentioned that India is preparing the announcement of a Draft National Offshore Wind Energy Policy, which will provide a “conducive environment for harnessing offshore wind energy” including the construction of the first offshore wind project.

With 22 GW of onshore wind capacity already installed, India’s plans to expand offshore is worth learning from.

Solar and wind are doing wonders even for Germany, Netherlands and Sweden, among other European/non-tropical nations…India is also following their footsteps

 

Reference: http://cleantechnica.com/2014/10/02/india-build-first-offshore-wind-farm/

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Google Invests in Californian Solar Power Plant

US tech giant Google Inc. has agreed to provide US$145 million in equity financing for the "Regulas Power Plant Project". The 737-acre 82 MW DC solar photovoltaic power plant is in construction on an abandoned gas and oil field in Kern count, California, and will be comprised of over 248,000 SunEdison mono-crystalline solar PV modules.

This is the US tech giant's 17th renewable energy project, and put the company’s clean energy investment at more than $1.5 billion, and totaling a capacity of more than 2.5GW, across three continents.

Google renewable energy principal Nick Coons said: "This project with SunEdison presented an opportunity to take an old gas and oil field and turn it into a clean energy producing solar site. It made sense to support it on multiple levels."

SunEdison has developed, designed and executed the structured financing for the Regulus project, which is slated to commence operations later in 2014.SunEdison North America president Bob Powell said: "From developing the technology, to constructing the facility, to establishing mutually beneficial financial partnerships with leaders like Google, Prudential and Santander Bank, N.A., Regulus is a prime example of how SunEdison's end-to-end approach benefits everyone involved in a solar project.That we’ve already made such progress on a project that broke ground in December 2013 is a testament to the speed and efficiency of our process."


This 82MW Regulus solar project in Kern County in California will generate enough electricity to power 10,000 homes and support around 650 jobs. The plant can reduce CO2 emissions equivalent to not burning 125 million pounds of coal annually.

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Can Tesla Power Its Gigafactory with Renewables Alone?

Tesla recently announced that its Gigafactory, which will produce electric car batteries, will be located near Reno Nevada. More interesting to me, being an engineer and renewable energy advocate, is Tesla’s commitment to renewable energy. In his press conference, Elon Musk stated that the factory will produce all of its own energy using a combination of solar, wind, and geothermal. That’s a tall order, so let’s look at the numbers to see how feasible that is.

The factory is expected to be 10 million square feet (about 929,000 square meters), sitting on nearly a thousand acres of land. Tesla’s drawings show the plant covered in solar panels with a field of wind turbines in the distance. Musk said that the factory would be aligned with true north so equipment could be located with GPS and so the solar panels would be aligned with true south for maximum production. Although the picture shows panels on the roof, there’s a lot of land available for a ground mounted array and/or more turbines.

TESLA GIGAFACTORY

Energy Consumption

Navigant Research estimates that a battery factory of that size would consume up to 100 megawatts (peak). For a worst-case analysis I’ll assume it runs at peak constantly. The factory would consume 2400 MWh per day. For comparison, that’s the equivalent electricity consumption of about 80,000 homes.

Solar Production

Reno gets an average of five peak sun hours per day. Assuming PV panels with 20% efficiency on a fixed (non-tracking) mount, the rooftop array should generate about one kWh per square meter per day. You can’t cover the entire roof with panels, so using a roof area of around 850,000 square meters, that gives us 850 MWh of solar energy production each day.

Wind Production

Reno’s average wind speed is not particularly friendly toward wind energy production. At 150 meters high, the average wind speed is only about 7 m/s. A 3 MW utility-scale turbine would generate 900 kW at that wind speed. I counted about 85 turbines in the picture, so that would give roughly 1836 MWh of wind energy per day.

Geothermal Production

Reno is no stranger to geothermal energy - it has several plants in operation already. The newest has a 20 MW capacity. Let’s say Tesla goes small and builds one with only half of that capacity. That 10 MW plant would produce 240 MWh of daily geothermal electricity.

Total Production

I started doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations (literally), but it became too unwieldy and I wanted to run some what-if scenarios, so I created a spreadsheet. Here it is, with the totals:

The numbers don’t lie. The site could realistically produce more than 2900 MWh of renewable electricity each day ... 20% more than it needs. These are conservative estimates on production and worst-case estimates on consumption, and it’s clear that there’s enough renewable energy to run the plant with some to spare.

Read More: http://www.engineering.com/ElectronicsDesign/ElectronicsDesignArticles/ArticleID/8436/Can-Tesla-Power-Its-Gigafactory-with-Renewables-Alone.aspx

This article Can Tesla Power Its Gigafactory with Renewables Alone? has been reproduced from http://www.engineering.com.

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India Offshore Wind Policy to Target 1 Gigawatt by 2020

India is set to introduce an offshore wind policy targeting 1 gigawatt by 2020, seeking to mimic Europe’s success in generating power at sea.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy will seek cabinet approval for the policy shortly, according to Joint Secretary Alok Srivastava. “Development of the technology has made offshore wind projects viable now,” Srivastava said by phone yesterday.

By 2018, the cost of electricity from offshore windmills will equal that of land-based projects in Asia’s second-biggest turbine market, he said. Wind farms in some states in India are generating power cheaper than new coal plants.

India, which has installed 21 gigawatts of wind power, is looking to expand at sea as the best sites on land fill up, while poor roads limit the introduction of larger, more productive turbines. It’s seeking advice from the European Union because the bulk of the world’s offshore farms have been built in the North, Irish and Baltic Seas.

The government plans to set up a new company by January to develop offshore projects, Srivastava said. State-owned generator NTPC Ltd. (NTPC), Power Grid Corp. (PWGR) of India Ltd., and a few others will form the business, which may start with 100 megawatts of demonstration projects along the coasts of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu states, he said.

India is also considering small, offshore farms for the Lakshwadeep, Andaman and Nicobar islands to reduce their dependence on expensive diesel generators for power, he said.

Reference: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-12/india-offshore-wind-policy-to-target-1-gigawatt-by-2020.html

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Abandoned California Oil And Gas Field Will Soon Be A Solar Farm

CREDIT: SHUTTER-STOCK

An abandoned oil and gas field in California will soon be home to a large solar plant, thanks to a partnership between Google and SunEdison.

The Regulus solar power plant will be the largest solar project completed by SunEdison in North America. Construction started on the plant in December and is scheduled to be completed and begin operation later this year. Google contributed $145 million to the project, which when completed will span 737 acres and produce 82 megawatts of energy — enough to power 10,000 homes.

 “We believe the world needs a wide range of clean energy technologies, each serving different needs,” Nick Coons, renewable energy principal at Google, said in a statement. “This project with SunEdison presented an opportunity to take an old gas and oil field and turn it into a clean energy producing solar site. It made sense to support it on multiple levels.”

There are multiple benefits of developing solar projects on brownfields like the abandoned oil and gas field in California. As Greentech Media pointed out last year, brownfield development often avoids arguments about how to best use land resources, arguments that are particularly common when energy projects are proposed on public lands. Since the brownfield site is already contaminated, and since it’s likely already cleared of trees, it makes an ideal place for a renewable energy project: few if any trees have to be cut down to make room for the project, and the contaminated site ends up being turned into a productive area. Brownfield-to-solar projects in New Jersey, Greentech Media notes, “appear to please everybody,” and have been quickly granted permits, since the environmental review process for a brownfield isn’t as in-depth as it is for a forest or other natural, uncontaminated region.

According to the EPA, there are more than 11,000 contaminated or abandoned mine sites that could be used to produce solar, wind, biomass, or geothermal energy in the United States. A Michigan-based study from 2009 found that if Michigan developed its brownfields into solar and wind farms, it could generate 5,855 megawatts of power.

Landfills, too, have succeeded as productive sites for solar projects. A 48-acre landfill in Dekalb County, Georgia was turned into a solar field a few years ago, with the installation of 7,000 flexible solar panels, and solar farms have also been installed on landfills in New York, New Jersey, Texas, California, and Massachusetts. Landfills’ elevation and clear, treeless terrain makes them well-suited for solar projects, and the methane they emit can also be captured and used. As of 2012, there were about 10,000 landfills in the U.S. that had reached capacity, making them possible candidates for solar farms.

The Regulus solar project is being made possible in part by a sizable contribution by Google, which has pledged to contribute $1.5 billion to renewable energy investments. The Regulus plant is Google’s 17th renewable energy investment. Despite its contributions to renewable energy, however, the tech giant has been criticized recently because of its ties to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a lobbying group that has attempted to block renewable energy development at the state level.

Reference: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/09/11/3566292/brownfield-to-solar-in-california/

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Shanghai Electric to invest $2 billion in solar energy in Morocco

State-controlled Chinese company Shanghai Electric is reportedly planning to invest more than $2 billion over a period of 5 years to develop about 3,500 MW of solar energy projects in Morocco.  

Reference: http://solarenergy.einnews.com/

The Chinese company had announced last June it got a substantial loan from the China Development Bank (CDB) to finance investment projects of $16.5 billion in 7 Arab countries, including Morocco.

"There are plans to construct five power solar stations, with a combined generation capacity of 3.5 GW,

"These projects will turn Morocco into one of the most important clean energy producers in 2020," the daily was quoted in the report.

It is indicated that this step taken, concurs with plans between China and Morocco for inking deals on renewable energies, exploration for oil, gas and minerals in Morocco.


Reference: http://solarenergy.einnews.com/article/223070434/FJRDvu8zh_DBmB0O

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