State's largest solar project to power San Antonio development

AP via Houston Chronicle ^ | June 12, 2007 | Associated Press

[thackney]

The redevelopment of San Antonio's landmark Pearl Brewery will include Texas' largest solar energy project — an installation of panels powering office, retail and residential space, developers said.

Silver Ventures, which is redeveloping the former brewery, announced plans Monday for the $1.35 million effort to install 758 photovoltaic panels atop a former warehouse, which once stored finished beer.

The panels will be capable of generating 200 kilowatts, or about one-fourth of the power needed in the 67,000-square-foot building. The system is the equivalent of 50 solar-powered homes.

CPS Energy, a city-owned utility, is contributing $400,000 to the project. An official said it's an economically viable project that provides a chance to measure the benefits of solar power. The agreement also serves as a model for other commercial uses.

"We've had a goal of testing solar energy technology in a real-world setting," said Paula Miles, CPS Energy director of energy research and technology initiatives. "Public-private partnerships are going to become the way to get things done. And this, for us, is one of our first forays into that brave new world."

Noah Kaye, a spokesman for the Solar Energy Industries Association in Washington, D.C., said a 3- to 4-kilowatt system can power a 2,200-square-foot house that uses 10,000 kilowatt-hours a year.

He said the brewery's 200-kilowatt system "is a substantial installation for a midsized to large commercial facility."

The state's existing largest solar project is at Fort Sam Houston, which supplements its energy supply with solar panels. Developers plan to have the Pearl Brewery panels in place by the end of the year.

Bob Sohn, an adviser to Silver Ventures on the Pearl Brewery development, said the project will give visitors a chance to learn about how solar power works. The system will show the amount of energy the rooftop panels are generating, he said.

Bill Barker, executive director of the nonprofit group Solar San Antonio, said the brewery's solar project is likely to attract visitors.

"There will be visitors to the site who'll want to see the largest solar installation in the state," he said.

[N3WBI3]

Yup but we better protect that array with a large fence! We should properly man a security force to protect it as well...

[Pilsner]

(Re: beer brands owned by Pabst) And they all suck.

I won't argue with that, at least today. All the old regional beers faced huge competition from Millweiser. They got squeezed out of the "regular" beer market, and had the choice of either going up market, like Anchor, or going down market into the "popular" (cheap) beer market. Once you have taken the "popular" beer approach your selling point, except for a bit of residual brand loyalty, is price.

Again, Millweiser has you at a disadvantage, because of the efficiency of their huge, automated, breweries and distribution systems. They can make, and distribute, cheap beer cheaper than you can. It makes economic sense then to close your brewery and just have Millweiser slap your label on bottles of the cheapest corn and rice based swill they can turn out, uhhhh, I mean of course, just have Millweiser custom brew your beer, according to the ancient family recipe ; )

Of course that leads us to the sad state of mass produced domestic beer. Go into your average gas station, look at the various brands of beer. Then look closely at the labels, or better yet check on the internet, and see just who actually makes all those beers. Apart from Coors, and a few surviving regionals, Anchor, Shiner, 95% of the domestic beer there is Millweiser.

[P-40]

Of course that leads us to the sad state of mass produced domestic beer.

That made me think of 'The Simpsons" episode where the Germans are buying the nuclear power plant.

Excuse me, my English is inelegant...but your beer tastes like swill to us.

[Red6]

Bottom line- There are only two alternatives that offer cheap, in mass available, reliable, nationally produced electrical power, coal or nuclear. That’s it.

The rest is sound good garbage, where just like in Germany, just like in California today you will end up with a costly mess. Such policy leads to inflated costs, rolling brownouts in the summer, industry burdened by high energy costs and left to compete on international markets disadvantaged……. Plain folk talk - It’s stupid.

Ideally nuclear is the direction where we should have gone years ago and a successful example is France, which has demonstrated it works. But after 3-mile Island and Chernobyl, what politician will support a new nuclear plant? As I have stated, and you can easily fact check, for nearly 30 years nobody received a federal license to build such a plant in the US until 2007, ironically China is buying US nuclear power plants while we shut them down. Why? Because stupid pandering to stupid people, a non-pragmatic policy towards energy led by politicians who today are all gone anyway! What politician is concerned about 30 years from now in all reality? They are concerned with their next election, and what 50.01% of the populace “feel” is right in that moment. I wonder what the people felt in LA when their power went out in the summer?

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/17/business/nuke.php (Sad, in the US we want to crawl into caves and in China they eagerly jump all over it!)

Energy alternatives fail because they “all” run into issues in one or more of these aspects: cost (Your wind costs more that three times per KW/h than nuclear 1.4 vs. 4.6 cents; facts based on California’s cost of power by source), reliability, availability to those alternative means in that area, ease of mass production, power storage requirements, and power by weight or volume. Some of these alternatives are simply not really that clean or environmentally sound especially in large scale, but that’s a topic all of its own

Example: http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/AP1000/AP600-Licensed_predecessor.shtm

It’s cheap; reliable; lots of power from a small space; no storage requirements of power; geographically, weather, and season independent; massive output; nationally produced….. No, you don’t get that with your “wind farm”, sorry. How many wind turbines does it take to produce a constant 1,300+ MW for nearly 30 years with a few maintenance interruptions?

[P-40]

Your wind costs more that three times per KW/h than nuclear 1.4 vs. 4.6 cents

What is the half-life of windmill waste?

[Red6]

Do you know where that Uranium used in a power plant comes from? Right from beneath your feet! Guess what they use to mine for in “Uranium City”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium_City,_Saskatchewan

Let’s try it this way. Imagine that most people living in Texas want a cool place to live in the summer. Imagine they like TV and enjoy walking down a street that is well lit. These people also like to have jobs and enjoy being able to move about. Some even enjoy escalators and elevators, a cold fountain drink with ice in it and warm food. Now imagine that the only power sources available that can really provide reliable, large volumes of energy at realistic prices, is coal or nuclear. What is your choice? Don’t babble about some bullcrap solar cell or wind generator, the discussion is de facto limited to nuclear or coal, those are your choices. Now, what’s it going to be? Nationally, we just like the Germans, are building many many more coal plants in the future. Think about that while you dream of wind farms that today deliver a marginal output in Germany 3.7%, California 1.5%...

http://www.energy.ca.gov/wind/index.html#reports Think about this: lack of reliability, at more than three times the cost! Billions invested and California is getting a whopping 1.5% of their power from this.

Energy alternatives fail because:

1. Reliability / maintainability (Bad weather = no power)

2. Cost (Most forms of alternative power are far more expensive and even the optimistic measures price wind, solar, etc substantially higher than traditional power)

3. Mass production (Often you just can’t get there. A single aluminum plant can suck as much as a city.)

4. Suitability for application/operating environment (Think of a submarine)

5. Lack of environmental factors or susceptibility to damage in area to generate this alternative power. (Wind or even the sun is not available everywhere in great amounts; something like a hail storm can wipe out your $15,000 worth of solar panels on a roof.)

6. Storage requirements of power (Costly and possibly ecologically counterproductive to the whole purpose in the first place. Save the planet but have a battery bank next to your house. Example: a Prius with its batteries, is it really so clean?)

7. Weight, space, and or volume requirements to generate and store the power.

As mentioned, some of these alternatives simply aren’t so green (i.e. solar cells and often hydroelectric). When you build your wind farm like in California, you build them in the most suited and best locations, but what happens as you keep building more and more of these farms? What’s going to happen as more and more is pulled from wind is that the marginal return on investment for the next dollar spent will go down! You will rapidly hit a point where you have a situation of diminishing returns on the dollar invested with many of these alternatives if you were to truly attempt to make that the mainstay of power generation in this nation.

These alternative sources have a place and they do offer something. Indeed in the long term they may be the key to our energy needs, but in the mid and short term, they do not show to be be economically viable, reliable enough, nor capable of delivering the output. They are practical especially in remote areas that demand little. Think of a railroad crossing, emergency phone, and a light in a cabin in the middle of nowhere…… There it’s even economical to use these forms of sources since a generator or running power lines there is more expensive often. However, those out there beating the green power drum, believing it’s a grand conspiracy why we aren’t green today, thinking that all our demand can be covered by some wind farms; those folks are living in a fantasy land far removed from the economic and technological realities surrounding this issue. But that’s my opinion, which I at least can back with some facts, without resorting to hypothetical solar cells that don’t exist yet, wind farm efficiency that is not realistic....…….

Now, back to reality - Coal vs. nuclear

H2SO4 (acid rain- but that fad is over), CO, CO2 (global warming - that’s the new fad), carcinogenic hydrocarbons (Ignored, but probably the largest threat to health), sludge left over, residual soot despite scrubbers, massive mining, etc. How many coal miners died just in the US, just last year? None of this is there or to the extreme with nuclear power as with coal. I understand to you a nuclear power plant is an evil thing. That’s what people are taught to “feel”. However, since your green alternatives are pipedreams and everyone pretty much knows that with exception of 18 year old idealists in their freshman year at college and Hollywood celebs living in 20,000 square foot homes, we are placing our emphasis on coal. Coal is the direction Germany is going, it’s the direction California is now going, it’s the direction we as a nation are heading, and nuclear is the much cleaner alternative.

[Robert A Cook PE]

That’s about right: IF you pay the solar power cells, backup power regulators, batteries, hookup and frames and foundations and wires and grounds and all of the “stuff” that is actually required....

You’ll need around 18,000.00 to 23,000.00 per house.

IF you have no trees or other interferences that will block the sun anytime from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm local sun time. (You only get useable sunshine 6 hours a day. the rest of the time you must use the grid, or use expensive and very, very dangerous batteries.)

Now, at a usual bill of 200.00 - 300.00 a month in electricity for A/C, how long will it take an average household to “pay” for the 22,000.00 it takes to install the solar panels and converters and controlelrs?

[P-40]

Was there supposed to be some sort of point to all that?

[Red6]

“The major transmission constraints in ERCOT continue to be related to the transfer of energy into the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston load centers. Almost all of the 16,000 MW of new generation coming on line in the past three years has been located outside these areas due to environmental and economic considerations. The much longer lead time in building transmission compared to building new generation or shutting down old generation is the root cause of these constraints. ERCOT manages these constraints operationally by a market-based generation redispatch when possible and direct redispatch instructions or RMR contracts when necessary.”

http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/2004/nr20040512.html

“On April 17, 2006, power companies throughout Texas imposed blackouts because of an electricity shortage during unseasonably hot weather. According to ERCOT, the agency which operates Texas’ electric grid, demand for electricity will exceed safe levels of supply in 2009, which could trigger blackouts like those last year.”

[thackney]

Yes, even longer ago than the three year old press release you found, the need for transmission line upgrades and additions has been known in Texas. That is why you will find significant planning by ERCOT in this area to meet growing and changing loads.

From the more recent study:

ERCOT 2006 Report Transmission System Constraints and Needs
http://www.ercot.com/news/presentations/2006/2006_ERCOT_Reports_Transmission_Constraints_and_Needs.pdf

The most significant findings in the Five-Year Transmission Plan are:

* Transmission system infrastructure additions are needed and have been identified throughout the ERCOT
Region to maintain a reliable and efficient system.

* Transfers from West Texas will be improved by upgrading 345-kV terminal equipment, dynamic ratings,
and completing other projects with short lead times to the point that the ERCOT system can incorporate a
total of 4,850 MW (existing and new) of wind generation with limited curtailment without the need for new
345-kV lines.

* Several different transmission system constraints in the Central Texas area will be solved by the planned
Clear Springs – Salado 345-kV line.

* The planned 345-kV line from STP to Hillje to W A Parish will meet the needs for transfer capability from
South Texas into Houston in the near term.

* Rio Grande Valley constraints will be reduced due to recently completed and planned improvements.

also:

Since 2005 ERCOT TSPs have completed numerous improvement projects totaling over 1,800 circuit miles of transmission and 22,000 MVA of autotransformer capacity, with an estimated capital cost of over $1.3 billion. The projects identified in this report to serve the electric system through 2011 are estimated to cost approximately $3.1 billion over the next five years and are expected to improve or add 3,295 circuit miles of transmission lines and 17,900 MVA of autotransformer capacity to the ERCOT system.

Of course the limitations of existing transmission lines and the challenges and expense of building new lines show even more reason it makes sense to install power generation with the loads as was done in the Solar Project, the topic of this thread. Also such a project provides maximum output of the peak load shaving at a time when the system demands are highest, hot sunny days in central Texas.

[Red6]

Three year old press release? Last year in Plano Texas we had our power turned off because there wasn’t enough!

Bottom line -

1. It is being mandated that alternative sources be used as a means to deliver a share of the power.

2. What was predicted and stated as needed to meet future demands was more than what is being built. Only 3 of 11 power plants are being built.

The world was also fine and OK until they had rolling brownouts in California. They did the exact same thing. They built wind turbines in the North, they said “no” to new coal, gas, or nuclear plants for years, and eventually they were left with a small disaster which those largely responsible then blamed on those who warned them ahead of time of the looming problem (Perot Systems) and those from whom they were buying their delta in power.

[thackney]

Having an unplanned outage due to upset conditions is far from the claim that future load growths and not matched with future increased generation.

And TXU marketing campaign to play public opinion to get what they wanted in the first place is not proof of your claim either. Building Natural Gas plants instead of coal plants is still providing generation.

The tables of demand growth and planned generation are in the links I provided. Where is the shortfall you claimed?

[Red6]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/061407dnbusoakgrove.44d2228e.html

A good news story, especially for the DFW area. But do you see my point when you read even this article? Sound energy policy is being influenced by trendy wacko morons who today scream at the top of lungs “save the planet” and “global warming” and in 5 years those same morons would be the same ones waving their finger in the air saying it’s a conspiracvy of big business bla bla bla when their power bill goes through the roof, or they sit in a hot sweaty box in the summer with the power turned off. Pragmatism in energy policy has been superseded with trendy fads. As I stated before, for 30 years no one got a permit to build a nuclear power plant. Why did we begin to have shortages in refining capacity over the years? Look at the ANWR fiasco and what a political game that is. Yet we talk about how bad our dependence on foreign oil is and these outrageous fuel prices........

Trendy political BS is heavily influencing national energy policies. That’s my greater point.

[thackney]

Trendy political BS is heavily influencing national energy policies. That’s my greater point.

If that is your point, I agree with it. But it has been a truth in the energy business for many decades. You are only describing today's flavor of a very long diet.

[Red6]

Great we replace one fossil fuel energy carrier with another. Nuclear is the way we should have gone and it should be the emphasis today for electrical power development.

Your charts are greater regional. Within these are large areas like “where I live” that are not so peachy looking. Likewise, nationally in 2003 there was no shortage, tell that to those living in Southern California then.

[thackney]

You keep changing your complaint. First it was not enough Texas generation, then not enough transmission capacity, now it is type of generation and very specific location.

Southern California dug their own hole by refusing to allow the development of needed energy supply while still expecting cheap energy prices. Then California created insane legislation that attempted to force the energy prices while creating uneconomic mandates to business.

[Red6]

“Southern California dug their own hole by refusing to allow the development of needed energy supply while still expecting cheap energy prices. Then California created insane legislation that attempted to force the energy prices while creating uneconomic mandates to business.” You wrote

And that is differnt from what Texas is doing and why there are issues in the DFW area today how? Give it three years, then we’ll continue this conversation.

[thackney]

And that is differnt from what Texas is doing and why there are issues in the DFW area today how?

Because Texas Total Generation for future loads are being provided within the State. California expected Nevada to build the plants, have the pollution and sell the power to them. At the same time they expected to Pacific North West to continue their surplus of power and send to California.

DFW is a congested, growing demand center well within reach of reasonable transmission of electrical power through existing and planned transmission expansions.

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area the following projects are either completed, planned or already in progress:

In service during 2005:
Venus to Johnson Switch, Upgrade, 345kV 24 miles
Watermill to Cedar Hill, 345kV, 17 miles
Watermill to Tricorner, 345kV, 11 miles

In sevice during 2006:
Paris to Valley South to Anna, 345kV, 89 miles

To be in service by 2007:
Anna to NW Carrollton, 345kV, 33 miles
Jacksboro to West Denton, 345kV, 72 miles
Venus to Liggett and Venus to Sherry, 345kV, 45 miles

To be in service by 2008:
Parker to Willow Creek, 345kV, 23 miles
West Levee to Norwood, 345kV 7 miles

Those listed above and projects in other areas are listed in the document I linked above concerning ERCOT transmission. System wide from 2005 to 2011 there is a total of 3,852 mile of 345kV and 138kV major transmission line projects. Plus the addition of 34,217 Megawatts of 345kV / 138kV autotransformers that make both grid systems more robust and capable of load sharing.