Design for 80MW PV system?

[yoharv]

Hello All:

Looking to get started on a potential 80MW PV educational project - surprise - not finding much for....well basically creating my own powerplant!  Anyone seen any pages on these large type of designs?  

Thanks

[jimjjnn]

80 Megawatts?

Hope you have very deep pockets

[nothing to lose]

"Educational project"

Ya, How To Go Broke Fast 101!

Ok I heard Bill Gates was hanging out on forums somewhere, but I did not know YOU were here BILL.

Bill, wheres that $50 you owe me from the party in 1979??

Those chicks and beer weren't free you know.

 yoharv? Your not foolng me MR Gates sir!!! I want my $50 Billy!

[RP]

At about $5/Watt, step one will be "get $400,000,000".

Assuming a generous 100% conversion efficiency of 1KW/square meter:

Step two will be purchasing 19.8 acres of land to cover with panels.  More if you want to space them so you can get to individual panels to service them.

Step three is to obtain about 45 miles of interconnect cable to tie them all together.

Step four will be locating an 80MegaWatt grid-tie inverter and a suitable refrigeration system for the MOSFETs...

[richhagen]

While I would love to see an 80MW solar installation, don't forget you also would need to upgrade the grid and get a high voltage feeder to your site, in addition to finding a utility to give you a reasonable price or arrangement.  Even if you planned to use much of it on your campus, your generation vs. time is not going to exactly match your usage vs. time, so if you were going to use your local utility as your battery, since they already have the ability to match their generation to demand, you will likely have to work out some rather complex arrangements with them.  Most university installations start out rather small as experimental, such as IIT's panels on the roof of their power plant.  If it were to become too large of a percentage of their local demand, it would become much more complex, and would have to be arranged with the local utility provider to intertie with the grid.  Good luck with your project, and congratulations on having ability to finance the minimum of 320 million or so just for the panels needed to generate 80MW.  Rich

[wooferhound]

I think that he meant 80 Milliwatts . . .

[nothing to lose]

 Unless he was joking and a bit sarcastic himself I thought he meant MEGA

"basically creating my own powerplant!" and "any pages on these large type of designs"

Don't sound like a solar yard light project to me

[richhagen]

If I recall correctly, small m for milli, and big M for Mega.  Rich

[wildbill hickup]

yoharv,

Not quite sure if your serious about this. If you are more power to ya(no pun intended)however, it seems to me for someone that was having trouble with (2) 6 volt batteries, an inverter, and an electric blanket, this is one hell of a jump. You may want to concider a team of engineers (electrical, structural, etc.) for starters. You'll probably need just a litlle more advice and information than you can get from a few internet websites. Not sure where you are from but getting the local government involved(at least) as well may not be a bad idea as you might need just a couple of permits for such a project!!!!!

Just an observation

Wildbill

[finnsawyer]

I just heard that a solar system using mirrors to concentrate the sun's energy and a steam generator is twice as efficient as using straight solar cells.  In fact a large commercial effort is planned.  Well, that's been researched and developed.  You might consider something more modest using Fresnel lenses to concentrate the sun's energy.  That's also been done by "sun cube", but I thought their set-up looked chintzy.  Still, it's an interesting idea, and once proved that's probably the one I'd buy.  Have to put it in a glass house up here, though.  

[jimjjnn]

that's right m=milli, M=mega

[Titantornado]

". . . . . . congratulations on having ability to finance the minimum of 320 million or so just for the panels needed to generate 80MW.  Rich"

Nah, he's just got a really good deal going with CitizenRE.  ;oP

[JeroenH]

If it's educational I would start with 80 Watts... conceptually an 80W system is no different than a 80MW system and it would cost you 1/1000000th of the money.

Even if you have the money to burn (not only for the panels, but also for a few rather hefty inverters, the land, the cabling, labour, and negotiations with the power company) it might be better to invest in wind, or something. That might have a better return, at this point.

Unless it is educational in some economical or organisational way? Maybe to teach how to run large projects?

A bit more info might be useful.

[TomW]

Just an opinion.

[jimjjnn]

Tom W, Love it!!!

[elvin1949]

Good morning TomW

 It looks like he [cave man] could use a WATT or TWO.

later

elvin

[terramir]

yeah you need  about ten acres of land about 1 mill for mirrors and another mill for turbines the closed system including cooling towers, and not to forget that every mirror will need it's independant rotating and tilting process that should need an individualized sensor in order to work properly. I computer setup right there would probably set you back about 2000 programming hours but then again if you slipt that with a graduate level class the software should be the easiest.

Unless your in death valley you won't get 80MW out of it either at least not on average. Although in Death valley you could probably get 130MW at peak times And you probably could get the land from the state or feds for free:P. Hey you could probably get a grant from them to build the darn thing LOL. Although they already built this thing in spain over 20 years ago lol

terramir