THE BIGGEST SOLAR AND WIND FARMS IN THE WORLD

Two weeks ago I updated the field of solar electricity, courtesy of Carl Weinberg, former head of renewable programs for PG&E.  Well, he yesterday sent me more information, specifically from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBL):

• Distributed PV systems are getting bigger and more efficient
• median residential size grew to 6.4 kW
• module efficiency is now up to 18.4%
• this is remarkable, for 56% of sunlight cannot be converted into electricity for silicon
• about a third of this available light, or 15%, was once though to be useful
• Installed prices continue to fall, and the national median price now is $3.7/W for residential and $2.4/W for large farms.

Here is the complete report, Tracking the Sun, co-authored by Galen Barbose and Naim Darghouth, released last month.

About solar, the world has surged past the USA.  At one time we had the largest everything.  Here are the 5 biggest in the world today, all using solar photovoltaics:

  #1  Shakti Sthala, Pavagada, Karnataka, India:  2,000MW covering more than 20 square mile at a cost of $2.4 billion

  #2  Kurnool Ultra Mega Solar Park, India:  1,000 MW

  #3  Longyangxia Dam Solar Park, China:  850 MW (right)

  #4  Noor Complex Solar Power Plant, Morocco:  in the Sahara Desert, 580 MW when completed next year

  #5Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu, India:  648 MW

However, Wikipedia says that the largest is the Tengger Desert Solar Park in China at 1,547 MW because the Pavagada facility is not yet up to 2,000 MW.  Plus, the Bhadla Solar Park in India is at 1,515 MW, with an upgrade to 2,255 MW by the end of this year, which will make it the largest in the world:

The best the U.S. can do?  Solar Star in Southern California is at 579 MW.   United Arab Emirates has a 5,000 MW solar farm planned for 2030, beginning with 1,000 MW next year.  Dubai is building a 700 MW solar power tower (left) at a cost of $4 billion to produce electricity for 7.3 cents/kW.

LBL also last month published Grand Challenges in the Science of Wind Energy.  In summary:

• need for a deeper understanding of the physics of atmospheric flow in the critical zone of plant operation
• improved science and engineering of rotating machines
• optimization and control of wind plants working synergistically within the power system

In addition

• winds only produce about 7% of the U.S. electricity today
• wind power could supply up to half the world's electricity by 2015 if the above challenges are overcome

For the record, the largest wind energy farm is Gansu in China at 6,000 MW.  Alta Wind Energy Center in California is  #2 with 1,548 MW and Muppandai in India is next at 1,500 MW.  Abuilding in Western Australia is the Asian Renewable Energy Hub, planned for 7500 MW.  The Markbygden Wind Farm in Sweden is projected for 4,000 MW, while  the Titan Wind Project of South Dakota was targeted for 5,050  MW, but seems to have stopped at 25 MW.

The largest offshore wind farm will next year go into operation off England's Yorkshire coast.  Hornsea One will produce electricity for a million homes with 174 seven-MW wind turbines, each nearly 100 meters tall.  The blades of each cover an area bigger than the London Eye.  Even a 6 MW system is larger than the Eye:

I further checked, and found out that the largest offshore wind turbine is now the 12 MW capacity Haliade-X by GE. One of these can power 16,000 households.  That nacelle, as you can see, is humongous.  Here again is that comparison of size:

The above wind system dwarfs the GE 4.8 MW machine with a rotor diameter 173 yards (note that a football field is 100 yards long), where one blade is as long as the entire windspan of a Boeing 747.  Produces enough electricity for 5,000 homes.

Larger sizes produce power much more cheaply.  For example, a 10 kW home system costs $50,000-$80,000, installed.  Utility scale turbines of 2 MW cost $3-$4 million, installed, or half the cost per W.  Most people live where there is no wind.  Thus, you can't equate wind energy with solar PV residences.

A final bit of history should be of some interest.  The person who invented electricity from wind power was Charles Brush, who was born 170 years ago in Ohio.  Before wind energy, Brush built and sold electricity generators. In 1879 (140 years ago), the California Electric Light Company (now PG&E, the company of Carl Weinberg--see first paragraph) purchased two of these from Brush and became the first utility to sell electricity from a central plant to multiple customers using transmission lines.

But more to the point of this posting, Brush had competition from Thomson-Houston Electric Company and Thomas Edison.  Here is a Currier & Ives caricature of Edison and Brush from 1880.  In 1889 THEC bought out Brush Electric Company, and the two merged with Edison Electric Company to form GENERAL ELECTRIC, one of the 12 original companies in 1896 in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which today lost 0.07 points and remained at 27,493, still the all-time high.  GE, incidentally was only last year booted out of the Dow, and  replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance.

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Here is a map of current ocean storms:

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