photos: green wombat
A solar power plant that would supply green energy to hundreds of thousands of Southern Californian homes has come under attack – from environmentalists. Stirling Energy Systems has a contract to provide up to 900 megawatts of renewable energy to San Diego Gas & Electric from a 36,000 solar dish array to be built in the Imperial Valley desert. The first phase, a 300-megawatt, 12,000 dish array is to be completed by 2010. The rub: SDG&E (SRE) needs to build a $1.3 billion, 150-mile transmission line through a state park and other environmentally sensitive lands to get the renewable energy to its customers. Green groups are fighting the proposed Sunrise Powerlink, and in public hearings under way in San Diego they have cast the Stirling project as a technological Trojan horse being used by the utility to justify an environmentally damaging big power grab that could ultimately be used to deliver fossil-fueled electricity.
In testimony on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, a former executive with one-time Stirling Energy rival SAIC portrayed the Phoenix company’s Stirling dish as a costly and unreliable technology that would be hard-pressed to deliver on the SDG&E contract. A Stirling dish concentrates the sun’s rays on a heat engine. As hydrogen inside the engine expands it drives pistons that generate electricity. Stirling Energy currently operates a six-dish prototype power station at Sandia National Laboratories outside Albuquerque.
"The commercial viability of the Stirling system is unproven at this time," testified Barry Butler, veteran solar power scientist, in an affidavit. "My opinion is that dish/Stirling technology holds much promise. By 2020, the technology could be a significant player on a commercial scale in the concentrated solar power category. However, there is no possible way that dish/Stirling solar can move from high cost prototype models with substantive reliability concerns to large-scale production of high reliability low-cost commercial models by 2008 and full operation of a 12,000 dish, 300 MW array by the end of 2010." Butler based his testimony on SAIC’s experience with Stirling dish technology in 2002 when SAIC and Stirling Energy operated test dishes in Nevada. "Both SAIC and SES conducted maintenance on a nearly continuous basis to keep the units available for electricity production," Butler wrote in his affidavit.
Stirling Energy CEO Bruce Osborn, however, dismissed SAIC’s history with its Stirling dish technology, which it eventually abandoned, as irrelevant to his company. "It doesn’t seem realistic, or even reasonable, to compare SAIC’s problems and experiences to SES’ measured superior performance over extended periods," Osborn wrote in an email to Green Wombat. "Although the two systems are both called "Dish-Stirling Systems," they are in fact quite different in terms of the fundamental design approaches."
Rebutting Butler’s testimony, energy consultant Lon House noted that SAIC’s
Nevada solar dish was available for electricity production less than 35 percent of the
time versus more than 95 percent for Stirling Energy’s technology. He also testified that he contacted the companies manufacturing Stirling Energy’s solar dish and that they confirmed they could meet cost targets that would allow Stirling to produce electricity at competitive prices.
However the transmission line fight ends, it shouldn’t hinder the first 300-megawatt phase of Stirling Energy’s project as existing transmission lines can handle that load, Osborn told Green Wombat in a previous interview.
But the controversy is a sign that even green energy power plants can face the same sort of opposition as any large-scale project. Inevitably, there will be trade-offs as U.S. utilities move toward renewable energy and locate solar power plants where the sun shines the most – in the deserts of the southwest. Stirling Energy is also under contract to supply up to 850 megawatts of solar energy to Southern California Edison (EIX). Northern California’s PG&E (PCG), meanwhile, is negotiating with BrightSource Energy for 500 megawatts of solar power.
Green Wombat 
The issue isn’t environmentalists blocking projects. It’s about companies promising pie-in-the-sky renewable energy projects and then not delivering. I have been researching this issue myself and blogging about it over the last couple of weeks at at kdfuller.blogspot.com. The issue with the proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission line is giving access to fossil fuel energy from Mexico if the Stirling project isn’t ready in time. There are two Stirling Solar projects planned for southern California, and both are way behind schedule. As of last week, the pilot project in the Mojave for Southern California Edison had not been approved for construction even though Stirling told the press in 2005 the project would start in 2006; I was told the Bureau of Land Management can’t approve the project until it receives more data from Stirling’s consultant, and then it has to go through an environmental review process. Re: the SDG&E project, as of two days ago, I was told the BLM was still waiting for an environmental document before it could review and approve preliminary geotechnical testing, and Stirling had not yet filed its application for the project at the California Energy Commission. Why is it taking so long? The CPUC hearings mentioned rumors that Stirling is having trouble getting investors. In the last couple years, Stirling solar dish projects were evaluated and rejected by Arizona Public Service and in a New Mexico study led by Black and Veatch, again because the technology, while promising, is still pre-commercial.
Hi Todd:
I have been re-reading the articles on solar commercial plants. I don’t see a price range for developing them.
How much will it cost to built a 500MW solar plant? How much will the company save from the tax rebates? HOw would we calculted the health benefits from solar energy instead to coal plants?
It will always be pre-commercial until it’s built and used in real world settings. Only so much can come from R&D. I say build it now and if the transmission line is used to ferry fossil fuel generated energy from Mexico on a temporary basis then so be it. When this plant is built the infrastucture will be in place and the benifits enjoyed.
I completely agree with Kelly’s comments – Stirling technology requires significant additional investment into R&D and is definitely not ready for utility scale projects. It is currently low reliability technology with huge maintenance costs. This project is merely an excuse for the Sunrise line which SDG&E desperately wants in order serve in basin load with out of basin generation. SDG&E are using the headlines of “green”, “environmental” and “solar” to get a line built that will be loaded up with additional fossil generation.
Enrique – currently a concentrating solar project (CSP) costs in the neighborhood of $4,000/kw, before taking into account inflation and assuming relatively cheap land and electrical interconnection. A 500 MW plant would be HUGE. There are many CSP projects going up in Spain that are 50MW due to the feed in tariff (FIT) structure, but there costs are higher because they up size the collector field and incorporate molten salts to store the excess heat to use for generation after sunset. Again, this makes economic sense based on the FIT.
“It will always be pre-commercial until it’s built and used in real world settings.”
I would argue that the existing 150kw unit is a perfect R&D testing ground, and that in a couple years another 150kw unit should be installed building upon the lessons of the first. Then perhaps you build a 3MW unit…
SEGS was built in 8 stages over many years, and they learned something from each one of those stages. This knowledge is now being transferred to the Spanish projects as well as the Solargenix project in NV. Slapping up several hundred megawatts of technology that doesn’t work will not serve the goal of furthering green energy. Rather, it will leave a sour taste in the mouth of John Q Public known to the utilities and regulators simply as “ratepayer”.
I agree with Bob’s comment – the only way to move technology out of the lab and into the real world is by doing it. Blocking the transmission line because it “might” be used to supply fossil fuel generated power is shortsighted.
I suppose rolling blackouts would be a better solution.
Get real. Get grateful that there is at least a hope of Green Power. Quit blocking progress.
Wow! 150 kWe!
That’s almost enough to run 100 coffee makers at a time!
Yes, 150kw is not a large project, but it is 6 of these dishes in the ground running. These machines are known to have major problems with reliability, specifically the membranes not holding up. Further, nobody has a way to solve this problem today. By studying and tweaking 6 machines, much can be learned to enhance the long term viability of this technology. Putting up thousands of these dishes in their current state of development would bury this technology for several decades.
Progress is not putting a jet engine on a horse drawn carriage. This project will cause more rolling blackouts than it prevents. Of course, that is assuming they get built which right now is not a possibility because no bank or private equity will finance this project.
I’d rather see an untested and unproven renewable energy project move forward than see yet another proven, reliable coal fired power plant spring into being.
As for the possibility that the power lines might be used temporarily for the transmission of fossil fuel generated electricity, who cares? The overwhelming majority of electricity in the U.S. already comes from coal in the 1st place, what’s the big deal?
At the end of the day we can sit here for another 150 years waiting for science to master cold fusion or antimatter or some other pie in the sky pipe dream, or we can start rolling out projects like this stirling dish generation plant. If it doesn’t work out as well as planned, oh well, at least whatever power does come from it is clean and renewable, every last watt they produce is one less watt coming from coal.
*sigh* I don’t know where to begin…
CA law effectively prohibits even importing new coal fired generation into the state, and new build coal would not be allowed EVEN IF there was fuel available. Further, a relatively small portion of California’s supply stack is coal.
There is a PROVEN solar technology that was bid into the exact same SDG&E RFP by MULTIPLE BIDDERS which was rejected by the utility in favor of these “antimatter master cold fusion” devices called Stirling engines. It is CSP which focuses the suns energy to create heat which is then used in a traditional Rankine Cycle. I know for a fact that this technology was bid because I met with one of the bidders this afternoon.
There is no “temporary” use of the transmission lines. There is a transmission queue, and once a generator is in the queue, he is guaranteed that amount of firm transmission unless his project doesn’t come on line as expected, then his spot in line is given to the next guy in the queue. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
I am not advocating sitting around for 150 years. In fact, I am going one step further than not sitting around, I have devoted all of my professional energy to developing and financing renewable generation projects. I think Stirling engines should be researched. I know that there is huge potential for binary cycle geothermal, solar, tidal and other sources of renewable energy. I’m just not naive about it and prefer a sensible approach that yields the most benefit in the quickest time. Please try to educate yourselves on this important issue and don’t succumb to knee jerk reactions.
I’ve heard that some people at the utility are making $10,000 per hour!! If there is enough solar power north of San Diego, in California’s Central Valley, for the next world’s largest solar farm, what gives? The earth’s most abundant resource, the sun, remains poorly tapped in San Diego. And with all the good solar designs out there, why choose the risky one?! Take note: The utilities have a guaranteed profit in the Sunrise Powerlink failure scenario, but the ratepayers do not; the ratepayers will fail utterly, both financially and physically. And the threat of blackouts is insulting… was not the cause of the 2001 energy crisis market manipulation by utilities?? Indeed, the EXPENSIVE Sunrise Powerlink Proposal ties us ever more tightly to the international pipeline system that was recently under terrorist attack in Mexico. I heard that 1000 factories and a dozen big businesses, including Honda, Hershey, Kellog and Nissan, in Mexico, ground to a HALT this month when terrorists hit the gas pipelines (that fuel the mexican powerplants)!! What is reliable about a system that does not accurately budget for maintenance or security?? The only action now: Patience, not impulse buying… learn from experience– after 2001, we need a REAL energy make-over. County ratepayers must know what they want (and DON’t want) before they can get it.
correction: the pipelines attacked fueled internal distribution networks and a refinery, not mexican powerplants. I think the threat of terrorism remains the same in either case.
Isn’t it curious that Stirling Energy Systems (SAS) decided to not show up at the Phase one hearings in San Diego? Isn’t it strange that SAS refused to provide any information to the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) to be used at the Phase one hearings? And isn’t it interesting the some of the testimony of Lon House at the Phase one hearings has been stricken from the records? I don’t think the ALJ for these hearings is very amused by SAS’s absence in these proceedings. Now doesn’t this look like an “SDGE Bait and Switch”? Ladies and Gentlemen, SDGE has misrepresented us before, and they are trying to do it again! Don’t you see that?
nice information….
I am so disappointed on the so-called environmentist; instead of supporting solar energy initiatives, they oppose almost all utility scale solar deployement on some ridiculous reasons. They claim they want real renewable energy, instead of pie in the sky; but can they name one renewable energy better than solar? If the solar players are not given a chance to prove and develop, they will always be “pie in the sky”. The clock of global warming and peak oil are ticking, but they apparently don’t want to take any action except opposing SES’s 2 big solar projects.
It seems the more you read into the ‘alternative’ energy solutions the more sense nuclear energy makes. It’s a real shame that the issue is so taboo in the US and that the real experts in the field and facts about nuclear plant “disasters” such as the one at TMI are ignored. The research currently done on nuclear waste transmutation is fascinating and could potentially hold great promise for the reduction of waste and an increasse of nuclear power in the world. Other countries derive large amounts of their power from nuclear plants and do so without great harm to the environment, if you look at it from a practical standpoint. People need to know the facts about nuclear power before they start hiding under their school desks when the subject comes up. Nuclear is not necessarily a bad word….
Somebody has an agenda here with comments like “antimatter master cold fusion”.
This is not new technology. That small pilot plant and some of the units before that have been running quite well for decades. The basic technology is even older – Stirling engines, mirrors, a tracking system. No new technolgoy to be proven here. It just needs to get productized for mass production. That’s some real work, for sure. But it is no more complex than a modern automobile, and about the same about of mass and mix of materials – no exotic materials or production methods required. Cost in volume production should approach $1,000/kw.
“Huge maintenance costs”? Like, what? Washing the mirrors? All the components are simple and reliable. The engine is maintenance free – remember it’s not internal combustion so stress and wear is minimal. The structure – boring, nothing to see here, move along. The electronics – rudimentary microcontroller for tracking and control plus basic power electronics for conditioning and grid connect. Mirror coatings can have issues when exposed to the elements so that is an area of concern. Is that where the comment about “membranes not holding up” comes from? I’m not sure what is the “membrane” being referenced unless it means the mirror back coating. You might check some of the later reports from Sandia about achieving high mirror coating reliability. That should be a non-issue if well know methods are used for mirror production.
I have been personally working with this system at a overseas company preparing to manufacture it. It’s simple, solid technology that just needs a big push to get it into production. That big push depends almost entirely on politics and very little on the merits of this system.
It’s courious that environmetalist would go againt everything they stand for, and argue against the allready well surpressed green power. It makes one wonder how to support and validate such a hipocritical action. Furthermore makes one wonder just who the walrus is? If SES supplies 20% of power to south cali., who’s losing that 20%? Could it be the same as who’s supporting the Anti-green!
people, would you like to consider alternatives, instead of being locked into these us and them battles. Thorium as a source of nuclear fuel, look it up in Wikepedia. India especially is interested in this. Solar heat used to power windmills. Chinese are moving in this direction. Locking yourself into a position when we are still developing new technologies, just hinders things. However, all of us know based on our experience with the fossil fuel industries, (i.e. Rockefeller and Standardard Oil) that we have to develop close-to-home technologies, that are very inexpensive in order to compete with the mega corporations’ 20th century vision of how things should be run