Comments

Anonymous said

27 January 2012
Of course do I agree that a comparison of cost is of interest, but to make it meaningful, electricity generation costs have to be compared, not (only) investment cost, as annual full load hours differ significantly.
Moreover, in the special case discussed here, investment cost quoted for the Andasol plants are not correct; at least for Andasol 2 and 3 they are too high.

Anonymous said

26 January 2012
My comparison between Sakri and Andasol was entirely on the price, and not technological, front. With its relatively nascent foray into solar power generation, India has been opting more for PV plants precisely because of their more affordable capital costs and shorter gestation. -- Sarosh Bana

Anonymous said

26 January 2012
Hi - thanks for the comment. I agree to a certain extent, but just because one project is PV and the other CSP I don't think this makes the point irrelevant. There is a huge debate raging currently about the relative costs of PV vs. CSP technology. I assume the author was talking about capital costs anyway. Yes, Andasol has storage, that storage technology clearly adds a premium to the capital costs and currently (and this is evidenced by a number of projects having been switched from CSP to PV) the jury is out as to whether this additional premium makes a project investable, in comparison to a PV utility scale plant. The cost needs to come down. I agree, some CSP technology has compelling advantages (storage for one) and in certain markets will hopefully have a great future. But currently times are tough for getting CSP projects off the ground and the decreasing costs of building PV projects unfortunately for CSP keep the capital cost issue at the forefront.

Anonymous said

21 January 2012
Why the progress of solar energy installations so slow?
Capital costs get multiplied by involvement of several corporate players as well as governmental and political involvement. Everyone agrees that the capital costs are high.
Does anyone bother to explore the possibilities of reducing these costs?
There is possibility of reducing the costs by 25 - 30% by most conservative estimates which is not a small amount if you consider multi-megawatts installations. CSP Thermal technology could be cheaper than the PV panels. There has to be a strong will.

Anonymous said

19 January 2012
The comparison between Sakri and the Andasol plants is completely misleading for three reasons:
1) The Andasol plants are parabolic trough power plants which in general generate substantially more electricity per installed MW of capacity than PV plants do.
2) The Andasol plants are equipped with storage systems that allow for about 7 hours of operation at full load without solar radiation. Of course they have been built with the appropriate ‘oversized’ collector fields.
3) Last but not least: Parabolic trough power plants are strongly affected by economies of scale. Therefore three 50 MW parabolic trough power plants mean higher electricity generation costs than one 150 MW plant (Remark: In Spain power plant size is limited to 50 MW by law).
I am disappointed by such an article clearly showing that the author is not familiar with solar power plant technology and economics.

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