Well Worth the Wait
Carlos Gasco’ Travesado,
Head of Perspective
Unfortunately there was one member of the SEPA delegation who was late for the bus this morning and that threw off the entire schedule for the day.
Even more unfortunate, that person was me. Thank goodness Ervan Hancock, the secretary/treasurer of SEPA came back and got me, or this blog would not be coming your way.
I understand that for my penance, I am buying the first round of drinks so I am hoping my publisher doesn’t read this blog and takes only a quick glance at my expense statement. I’d hate to have to pay my own penance. Que Sera.
So like I said, we arrived late to Iberdrola, one of the major privately held power distribution companies in Spain. We were shortly introduced to Carlos Gasco’ Travesado, Head of Perspective, who works for Iberdrola Renewables, a separate company within Iberdrola that is active worldwide.
You might not be aware that Iberdrola is the largest wind asset company in the world. With the No. 1 position in Europe, and No. 2 position in the United States with 9.3 GW of wind installed and another 55 GW in the works.
Spain has a lot of wind, enough that on a windy day, 45% of load can be met by renewables. Of that 2% is from solar. In Spain there are a total of 20GW of dispatchable wind but that amount will have to double if Spain is to hit EU renewable targets.
When asked about solar integration issues, Carlos stated that Iberdrola has had very little trouble connecting solar to the distribution grid as PV is typically a dispersed resource. And if the grid requires upgrading to accept solar generation, the independent wind companies would compensate Iberdrola for the expenses.
Carlos expects that the amount of PV connected to the Iberdrola network could triple without undue hardship to Iberdrola in interconnecting to the grid. He also made the interesting point that Iberdrola already deals with 17GW of highly variable wind and that solar provides a much steadier output over time.
When asked about solar thermal plants that requires large focusing mirrors, Carlos predicts the costs are now equivalent to PV solar but he expects that costs could come down only about 20% from present prices. We should be visiting solar thermal facilities later in the week so I should be able to give a bird’s eyes view later in the week.
Looking at renewables from a different angle, Carlos provided the following rules of thumb on the availability of the resource:
Spain Wind 2300 hours/yr or 25% availability
Spain PV 1500 hours/yr or 17% availability
Germany PV 900 hours/yr or 11% availability
When asked about stand-alone PV solar, Carlos expects the majority of PV installed in Spain will be connected to the grid.
He went on to say that renewables are both an ideological and emotional topic that brings out vigorous debate. Because he is so knowledgeable, Carlos was quickly able to dispense all questions with quite satisfactory and straightforward responses and drew several spontaneous rounds of applause from the SEPA contingent.
Bravo Carlos!
May 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Why am I not surprised you were late for the bus? Just don’t miss the plane home!
How does Spain classify 20GW of wind as dispatchable? Is there some form of energy storage attached? If the wind is available 2300 hours a year or about 25% of the time that is a capacity factor of 25% or 5GW, which is far from the classic definition of dispatchable. Anyway, that is my question for this entry.
May 20th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
As Publisher and the one who OK’d Rick’s travel to this junket (”er, fact finding mission”), I predict the round of drinks will mysteriously disappear on the expense report somewhere in the approval stage. It is not so much the first round that is costly, it is the “renewables” that follow.
Questions for Rick: How many hours/day are the panels @ zero contribution? Is there a storage feature that levels out the supply to the grid during darkness? How about high winds, hail, etc. in this part of Spain?
May 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Gene, I talked with the fellows at Iberdrola and also at Plataforma and they tell me that they can back up wind with gas fired generation as they already have a lot placed in the country.
David, you might find this quite remarkeable but the good folk on the tour picked up the round of drinks so you won’t have to scan my expense statement to locate said invoice.
Trust me on this one.
As to wind and hail. Wind did play havoc on some installations but the two axis solar PV panels can be adjusted parallel to the wind automatically and thus be protected from the wind. I don’t know about the parabolic mirrors but I am sure the heliostats for the Tower Power can be pivoted to reduce wind pressures.
As to hail, the PV systems we toured are designed to take direct hits from a 1 inch (2.54 cm) ice balls without damage. The panels are mounted in such a manner that they have a shock absorbing adhesive to take up shock.
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Rick is joining a U.S. contingent traveling with the Solar Electric Power Association to tour large-scale grid connected solar installations in Southern Spain. Check out Rick’s daily blog and experience the world of solar that is in the here and now.Categories
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