Renewable Energey

esolar


-The solar thermal system from eSolar is part of Google's aim to produce a gigawatt of renewable energy that is cheaper than coal within the next few years.
-Google has said it believes it needs to get in the range of 1 to 3 cents per kilowatt hour for solar or other renewables to be competitive with coal.

- google invested 130 million ( with others )
- says: covering 1% of Sahara desert with esolar panels will power entire world
- asr: esolar needs 5 acres to generate 1 mega watt this seems lowest compared to Ausra ..( wind needs 15 acres for 1 mega watt )
- eSolar offers clean, carbon-free, peak power production based on unique modular Concentrating Solar Power technology.
- Our powerplants are structured on a 33 MW base unit, called a “power unit.” An eSolar™ power unit consists of several thermal receiver towers situated on a footprint of 160 acres (64 hectares), each with a field of dual-axis heliostat mirrors, and a central power block with steam turbine and generator. 33 MW power units can be replicated as many times as necessary to fit specific power requirements.
(for Wind Power: About 15 to 20 acres are needed for a 1-megawatt installation. see in Wind power post , where as esolar needs 5 acres per Megawatt )
- Software-controlled heliostats, or mirrors, reflect light onto a tower where the heat turns water to steam that turns a turbine.

- eSolar on Tuesday said that it will build solar thermal power plants that will make 245 megawatts of electricity for Southern California Edison.
- The plants will be built in the Antelope Valley of Southern California and begin operating in 2011.
- California is a hotbed for utility-scale solar power because the state has relatively aggressive renewable energy targets.
-The state's renewable portfolio standard mandates that utilities generate 20 percent of their electricity by 2010 and 33 percent by 2012.

10 Questions for eSolar’s CEO Asif Ansari
----------------
Sunpower

That hasn't stopped Abu Dhabi's clean-tech fund, Masdar, from funding a $1.2 billion solar thermal company called Torresol. Another competitor in the market, Ausra, has received more than $40 million from blue-chip venture capitalists. Yet another player, Abengoa, recently signed a $4 billion deal with Arizona Public Utilities, and Brightsource recently landed a 900-megawatt deal with the California utility PG&E. Stirling Energy Systems, a company that has adapted the Stirling Engine, a 200-year-old invention, for concentrated solar power, even pulled in a $100 million investment.
----------
Ausra Utility-scale solar power. Market prices. Now. ( Vinod Khosla funded )
- SolarThermal 101 - showed the land useful for solar ( high heat lend whole country )
- specialty 1: Ausra’s Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar
collector uses commodity steel and flat glass as raw materials, eliminating supply
constraints, driving down the costs.
- specialty 2: An automated welding/assembly system developed by Ausra produces large high-precision solar reflectors more than 20 times faster than possible with manual production.
- Using Ausra's current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles.
- Myths about Solar Energy
-- All of America's needs for electric power – the entire US grid, night and day – can be generated with Ausra's current technology using a square parcel of land 92 miles on a side. For comparison, this is less than 1% of America's deserts, less land than currently in use in the U.S. for coal mines, and a tiny fraction of the land currently in agricultural use.

- In November 2007, Ausra and California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E)announced a power purchase agreement for a 177-megawatt solar thermal power plant to be built in central California. The power plant will generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes. (http://ausra.com/news/releases/071105.html)

The Las Vegas facility will employ a staff of 50. At full capacity, it will annually produce more than 700 megawatts of solar collectors – enough to power nearly half a million homes, and keep 1,400 construction workers employed building solar power plants.