A few months back I ran down the numbers on replacing our coal fired plant with a solar plant (Is Solar a reasonable alternative? Continued) I’m sure there was more than a few of you that thought I was a little out there.
Well in today’s New York Times there is an interesting piece on the 2 new solar plants that will be installed in California. (Two Large Solar Plants Planned in California)
These two plants will have a capacity of 800 MW (remember that is operating at 100% efficiency) but only regularly produce a third of that!
The total area for these two plants…12.5 square miles or around 8,000 acres!!!
Oak Creek Power plant’s capacity is 1,153 MW (and operates at about 70% that capacity) and sits on 400 acres.
In this post I describe how much land is needed to put in a solar plant that is the equivalent to our power plant here in Oak Creek. Well it seems that land is becoming a hot item out in the deserts of Arizona and California for this exact reason…to put in solar power plants!!
CNN: The Southwest desert's real estate boom
Summary:
Oak Creek Power Plant (OCPP) produces 7,070,196 MW per year (based on the maximum output and the average real production for coal plants being 70%) and resides on 400 acres of land.
Today the largest solar plant in the world, Hoya de Los Vincentes in Murcia, Spain (HdLV), produces 60,444 MW per year (based on the maximum output and the average real production for solar plants being 30% – actual results are much worse) and sits on 247 acres.
The largest solar plant under construction, Girassol Solar Power Plant in Moura, Portugal (GSPP) expected to by in operation by 2011, will produce 162,936 MW per year and operate on 320 acres of land.
If we want to have a solar plant produce the same energy as that of the current OCPP then based on what is currently in operation we would need a solar plant that would take up 45 square miles of land (about 6.7 miles by 6.7 miles). Using the technology that is currently under construction we would be able to have a solar plant that would only take up 22 square miles (about 4.6 miles by 4.6 miles)
READ THE REST OF THE DETAILS HERE...
