Thanks to its low latitude and low percentage of cloudy days, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is an ideal location for capturing solar energy. So it’s no surprise to see the world’s largest operating concentrated solar power (CSP) has launched in the sun-soaked Middle Eastern country. Officially inaugurated this week by UAE President and Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Shams 1 is a 100 MW CSP that will power 20,000 UAE homes.
Construction on Shams (which is Arabic for "Sun") 1 began in the second half of 2010 at a site roughly 120 km (75 miles) southwest of Abu Dhabi. The power plant sees an area of 2.5 km2 (1 sq mile) covered with 250,000 mirrors mounted on 768 parabolic trough collectors. The parabolic mirrors focus sunlight onto oil filled pipes that are heat water and produce steam that is then used to drive a turbine. Being located in the middle of the desert, a dry-cooling system is used to keep water consumption down.
Built at a cost of around €460 million (US$595 million), Shams 1 is a joint venture between French petroleum company Total (20 percent), Spanish company Abengoa Solar (20 percent), and Masdar (60 percent). With the addition of Shams 1, Masdar, which was established to develop and manage Masdar City, is claiming to account for almost 10 percent of the world’s installed CSP capacity.
Masdar claims Shams 1 will cut the UAE’s CO2 emissions by roughly 175,000 tonnes (193,000 tons) per year, which it equates to planting 1.5 million trees, or taking 15,000 cars off the road.
While Shams 1 can lay claim to the largest capacity CSP plant currently in operation, it isn’t likely to hold the title for long. CSP is “gathering steam” in many parts of the world, with no less than nine 100 MW or higher capacity CSP plants already under construction in the U.S., India and Morocco, and many more planned around the world.
The construction of Shams 1 can be seen in the video below.
Source: Masdar
Three quarters of a billion dollars to produce 100 MW. Joke of the century.
@windykites1 your numbers on PV may be right but the difference is PVs have a life span and eventually all of them will have to be replaced (though there replacements will likely be better and cheaper) concentrated solar power has lower costs for upkeep as it's essentially pipes, mirrors and turbines.
that thing is even more expensive (750 million) for 200mW, compared to this CSP plant... 595 million for 100mW, but the solar tower is much less complicated and error prone. There are no moving parts at all, except for the [air] turbines. This CSP plant has the steam turbine, along with a large plumbing system and 768 parabolic trough collectors that have to move accurately to track the sun, that's a lot of moving parts and potentially problems and maintenance to do.
The solar tower at the cost of .75 billion dollars is projected to pay of its purchase price in 11 years, and operate without any major maintenance for 80 years... which is actually believable considering its mostly "solid state" e.g. a concrete structure. That's 69 years of free energy
So it'll clean a NG plant's clock within 2 yrs with almost free power after that. Please show me the NG one that can beat it over their 40 yr life?
Hell, all the NG will be gone, at least for burning, in 30 yrs with the most recent data and expected increased useage.
They overstated the oil/Ng shale output because the fracking/tight wells only last a yr before their output plunges to 10% in a few yrs. They had been expected to flow heavy for 10-20 yrs the early NG estimate was but that was very wrong.
Now it was also based on NG useage a few yrs ago but it will double in 5 yrs, cutting reserves 50% just in that.
So before the NG or CSP plants die of old age NG one won't have any fuel but the CSP has that big nuke in the sky ;^P
The fact that the oil and gas companies are still Fracking calls your claims into question.