Plant Services - March 2008 - (Page 32)

SuStainability Energy More at www.PlantServices.com For these articles and more, search www.PlantServices.com using the key words “energy strategy.” Energy and climate change: the executive’s quandary Planning for minimum carbon Energy projects are different Does it pay to be green? Share and expand your knowledge in the Best Practices Energy Wiki Spain to spin turbines with solar steam Currently under construction in one of the sunniest parts of Spain – the desert-like heights of the Sierra Nevada in Andalusia – Andasol will be the largest solar energy plant in Europe, and one of the largest in the world, when completed in 2009. It also will be Europe’s first and the world’s second solar energy plant to use parabolic troughs to capture solar radiation and generate electricity on a commercial scale. (The first is the 64 MW Nevada Solar One in the United States.) Andasol 1 and 2 each will generate 50 MW of renewable electricity by concentrating sunlight in two vast solar fields of troughshaped parabolic mirrors. Rather than generating electricity directly as with solar cells, the technology collects the solar radiation as heat, which is pumped to adjacent power plants where it generates electric power with steam turbines. Parabolic trough power plants use concentrated sunlight in place of fossil fuels to generate steam to drive turbines in adjacent conventional thermal power plants. A large field of parabolic trough mirrors tracks the sun and concentrates solar radiation on a collector tube installed at the focus of the mirrors. Heat-transfer fluid passing through the collector tube is heated to temperatures high enough to generate steam. Each power plant will have its own 200-hectare (494-acre) solar field containing 624 parabolic troughs arranged in 156 loops. The fields produce twice the thermal energy that the plants’ steam turbines can absorb. The excess energy is stored in liquid salt tanks for as long as seven hours, thereby ensuring a continuous and stable supply of electric power to the grid. The plants will produce about 350 gigawatt-hours of electricity per year, controlled by ABB’s extended automation system 800xA and power generation portal software. reduce waste, then the metrics should include things like avoided landfill costs, potential avoidance of carbon charges, use of waste instead of fuel and so on. The most common mistake is to consider the waste to be “free” instead of a valuable resource and fail to capture the full potential. Reducing the community’s material or energy waste: Cities have significant supplies of an essentially renewable, mainly biomass fuel with a pretty high calorific value, called municipal waste. Increasingly, energy-consuming industries with large carbon footprints and high energy price risks are looking at this fuel. First among these is the cement industry, replacing expensive highcarbon fuel and being paid to take low-carbon waste. Some facilities close the loop and deliver waste heat back to the communities for uses such as district energy, further reducing the amount of primary fuel and greenhouse gas emissions. The key is to consolidate the benefits of multiple players into renewable energy planning and design mutually beneficial operating and cost-sharing approaches, and track the consolidated benefits. Reducing future energy price risks: Enormous uncertainty exists about the future costs of natural gas, coal and electricity from traditional suppliers, and a realistic strategy can be implementing renewable energy as a means of managing risk by diversifying sources. If this is the primary motivation, investment evaluations will be based on a range of future probabilities of pricing for traditional supplies, and the value will be judged as much on the avoidance of risk and operating costs volatility as on current operating cost. Reducing future carbon regulation risks: One of the biggest uncertainties surrounding U.S. energy use is uncertainty over the shape and costs of future regulation to reduce greenhouse gases. The probabilities range from minor adjustments on today’s status quo to draconian measures having significant effects on cost and availability. Under this span of probabilities, renewable energy and efficiency are natural approaches to manage the uncertainty. Again, the value will be seen as risk avoidance. Make it real The future is clear in broad strokes: Conventional energy supplies will become more expensive and increasingly scarce, and climate change regulation in some form will continue to be a major factor. Companies can expect customers, shareholders and the community at large to want to understand how the risks surrounding energy are being managed, and visible successful renewable strategies will be a key part. Renewable energy projects will be successful when they stand on their merits when measured against clear goals with clearly prioritized and encompassing targets well beyond immediate operating cost. They will be more successful when integrated with long-term efficiency, heat recovery and cogeneration. March 2008 32 www.PLANTSERVICES.com http://www.PlantServices.com http://www.PlantServices.com http://www.PLANTSERVICES.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Plant Services - March 2008

Plant Services - March 2008 Contents From The Editor Letters The PS Files Up and Running Crisis Corner What Works Asset Manager: Enterprise Thinking Technology Toolbox: Hydrogen In Action Cover Story: Get Real Electrical: Reliable Distribution Power Transmission: When the Belt Breaks Web Hunter: Tooting Horns In the Trenches Product Picks Classifieds Fast Facts Energy Expert: Energy versus Sustainability

Plant Services - March 2008

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