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The World's Largest Solar Farm Rises in the Remote Egyptian Desert (latimes.com) 153

Posted by msmash from the marching-forward dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1913 on the outskirts of Cairo, an inventor from Philadelphia named Frank Shuman built the world's first solar thermal power station, using the abundant Egyptian sunshine to pump 6,000 gallons of water a minute from the Nile to irrigate a nearby cotton field. World War I and the discovery of cheap oil derailed Shuman's dream of replicating his "sun power plant" on a grand scale and eventually producing enough energy to challenge the world's dependence on coal.

More than a century later, that vision has been resurrected. The world's largest solar park, the $2.8-billion Benban complex, is set to open next year 400 miles south of Cairo in Egypt's Western Desert. It will single-handedly put Egypt on the clean energy map. That is no small feat for a country that's been hobbled by its longtime addiction to cheap, state-subsidized fossil fuels and currently gets more than 90% of its electricity from oil and natural gas. [...] The Benban complex, which will be operated by major energy companies from around the world, is expected to generate as much as 1.8 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. It will consist of 30 separate solar plants, the first of which began running in December, and employ 4,000 workers.
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The World's Largest Solar Farm Rises in the Remote Egyptian Desert More

The World's Largest Solar Farm Rises in the Remote Egyptian Desert

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  • 1.8 GW? (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 )

    So. they're going to get 1.8GW of the ~25GW they produce in total? For 12 hours per day, or less, of course.

    That seems to translate to maybe 4% of their electricity production.

    Color me unimpressed....

    • Re:1.8 GW? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @04:14PM (#57035928)

      So. they're going to get 1.8GW of the ~25GW they produce in total? For 12 hours per day, or less, of course.

      That seems to translate to maybe 4% of their electricity production.

      Color me unimpressed....

      According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the US currently generates 1.4 percent of it's energy from solar, Egypt is about to cover 4% of it's energy needs from solar in one fell swoop. I'd say that's rather impressive, especially since the Egyptians have by now probably caught on to the fact that (A) sunlight, unlike oil and gas, carries no extraction costs with it, (B) it comes with no geopolitical baggage and (C) Egypt has a fantastic abundance of both sunlight and cheap desert land to put solar plants on. Meanwhile in the US, the nation's president thinks the future of the nation's energy generation lies in coal and natural gas of which one is being out competed price wise by Wind and Solar and the other soon will be.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Train0987 ( 1059246 )

        No extraction costs? What do you call the $2.8 billion to build the thing? That doesn't even count transmission.

        • Re:1.8 GW? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by amicusNYCL ( 1538833 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @04:45PM (#57036218)

          No extraction costs? What do you call the $2.8 billion to build the thing?

          I'm not a geologist or anything, but I call that a construction cost. Which applies to any power generation station.

          Really, this isn't hard. Most of the same costs like construction and transmission will apply to any power generation station. But with things like solar, wind, and hydro, you only need to build them in the right location, you do not need to pay to get the fuel.

          • Re:1.8 GW? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @05:15PM (#57036514)

            No extraction costs? What do you call the $2.8 billion to build the thing?

            I'm not a geologist or anything, but I call that a construction cost. Which applies to any power generation station.

            Really, this isn't hard. Most of the same costs like construction and transmission will apply to any power generation station. But with things like solar, wind, and hydro, you only need to build them in the right location, you do not need to pay to get the fuel.

            Extraction costs is getting the coal out of the ground, processing costs is getting the raw coal into a usable state, shipping costs is loading it onto a barge and shipping it down to Florida, energy production costs is building a coal fired power-plant in Florida and buying coal at market prices so you can burn it and generate energy for Floridians to use to air condition their houses. Contrast this with solar, where the is no digging up the sunlight, no processing the sunlight into a usable state, no shipping the sunlight down the Mississippi on barges to Florida, you get to go straight to the power plant building part and there your costs are basically fixed since there are no fluctuations in the price of sunlight the price of sunlight is pretty much always $0.00. The real beauty of this idea is to use the sunlight you are trying to escape to cool down your house.

        • Re:1.8 GW? (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @05:06PM (#57036440)

          No extraction costs? What do you call the $2.8 billion to build the thing? That doesn't even count transmission.

          What do you call $X billion to extract the oil and then $Y billion to build a refinery to process it into a usable state and/or ship it to the consumer? ... which is the process with oil, natural gas and coal. You don't have to dig up the sunlight, you don't have to refine it, you don't have to ship it to the power-plant, it just shines down on you from the sky, onto your solar panels allowing you to go straight to the convert-it-into-electric-enery step.

        • That's a decent, if not amazing price considering the output. LCOE comes out as around $50-60/MWh or something like that?

      • According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the US currently generates 1.4 percent of it's energy from solar, Egypt is about to cover 4% of it's energy needs from solar in one fell swoop.

        No, they're not. The capacity factor of solar electric is pretty shit. If we assume that the CF of this plant will equal the best place in the USA (Arizona) then the annual output will be about 19% of the rated output. This means a total of 2,995 gWh per year. Since Egypt currently produces about 170,000 gWh per year of electricity, this new plant will only equal about 1.7% of their total electrical production.

        It will of course be an even lower fraction of total energy production.

        • But you do know that power need more or less follows the course of the sun?
          Hence you do know that the CF is completely irrelevant?

          So why starting an argument about power with the dreaded CF?

          Oh, my mistake!? You did not know?

          • But you do know that power need more or less follows the course of the sun?
            Hence you do know that the CF is completely irrelevant?

            CF is relevant when comparing generating capacity with demand. Egypt currently consumes about 170 TWh per year. That means they need 170 TWh production capacity. The CF will become very important if they intend to replace oil fired plants that have a CF of (I'm pulling a number out of the air) 60% with solar panels that they can expect only 30% CF.

            So why starting an argument about power with the dreaded CF?

            Because solar power is notorious for over promising and under delivering. You live in Germany, no? Then you should be abundantly aware of the high costs and

            • No, CF is completely irrelevant for that.

              Then you should be abundantly aware of the high costs and low reliability of solar power.
              Solar power is neither expensive nor unreliable.

              You keep mixing up 'reliable' with 'dispatchable'.
              Two complete different things!

              • No, CF is completely irrelevant for that.

                Perhaps then we'll just have to agree to disagree.

                Solar power is neither expensive nor unreliable.

                Well, things like "expensive" and "reliable" are relative. Solar compared to nuclear, coal, natural gas, or even wind, is expensive and unreliable. What's your metric for comparison?

                You keep mixing up 'reliable' with 'dispatchable'.

                No, I'm not.

                Two complete different things!

                I agree that they are two different things, I'll use "dispatchable" when it's appropriate and "reliable" when it's appropriate. I used "unreliable" to describe solar power and I meant that.

                • Then explain me why in a desert around 12AM solar power is unreliable ....
                  Or at any ofher place or time?

                  There is completely reliable no sun at mid night, and there is completely reliable ligh around noon, unless you live close to the poles.

                  Again: you are mixing up dispatchable with reliable.

                  Regarding the costs, solar is the second cheapest power source, after wind, since nearly a decade now ... get up to date man.

                  • Then explain me why in a desert around 12AM solar power is unreliable ....

                    That's a very interesting definition of "reliable". I guess solar is "reliable" if you define it so narrowly to the point it's nothing more than "when the sun shines". My last car was "reliable" when the weather was warm and no snow on the streets, but in the winter it didn't like to start and had trouble getting up the steep hill in front of my house in the snow.

                    Or at any ofher place or time?

                    I'll remember that when a nuclear power plant has to reduce power or shutdown because of a heat wave. Nuclear power is "reliable" except in a t

                    • Only x% .. you say 2% .. of the world energy is solar because not many companies invested into it.
                      Why you still rant about reliablity is beyond me.
                      Solar power is 100% reliable just like any other power source in the planet.
                      And unlike a coal palnt that could in theory have a malfunction, solar power never has a malfunction.
                      So yes: you still keep mixing up reliable with dispatchable. No idea why.

                      Or do you really want to claim that tomorrow at your location the sun might have a chance not to rise reliable as i

                    • You're arguing with a moron who has no clue how to utilise math or logic, and is completely incapable of ever admitting that he is wrong. Stop wasting your time.

        • According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration the US currently generates 1.4 percent of it's energy from solar, Egypt is about to cover 4% of it's energy needs from solar in one fell swoop.

          No, they're not. The capacity factor of solar electric is pretty shit. If we assume that the CF of this plant will equal the best place in the USA (Arizona) then the annual output will be about 19% of the rated output. This means a total of 2,995 gWh per year. Since Egypt currently produces about 170,000 gWh per year of electricity, this new plant will only equal about 1.7% of their total electrical production.

          It will of course be an even lower fraction of total energy production.

          And yet 1,7% is still more than the US.

          • And yet 1,7% is still more than the US.

            Correct. And?

      • Actually it's around 0.4% of total energy and 2.8% of electricity if Wikipedia's numbers are correct. But that's still nothing to sneeze at, plus they don't have the problem that Europe has with seasonal variations. They can build quite a bit more than this to cover most of the increased daily power use (3-4 GW on average).

      • Meanwhile in the US, the nation's president thinks...

        whatever he's paid to think.

      • >> sunlight....
        >> (B) it comes with no geopolitical baggage
        Kinda disagree. Tell this to people in Syberia...
        Ok, fine, a "bit" more abundant than oil. :-)

    • But in that climate, solar is a more relatable 12-hour daily source than anywhere else with a significant user market and a lot of the kind of utter devastation that would be okay to pave over with solar collectors. Such a source could power, say, a large desalination project.

      • EDIT: "...reliable 12-hour..."

      • Solar is quite likely a suitable energy source for a nation like Egypt. Here's what I expect to happen though, if the people planning these projects plan this out like so many others in the past, they'll soon exceed their ability to match supply to load and end up with excessive costs and unreliable electricity.

        It's real easy to go from 0% solar power to 10%. Getting from 10% to 20% solar is often a bit harder but still rather trivial. What usually happens when trying to get past 15% or 20% of wind and s

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by amorsen ( 7485 )

          Denmark is around 50% renewable electricity. The total cost of Danish electricity imports is LESS than the total income from Danish electricity exports, despite the fact that Denmark imports MORE than it exports.

          Yes, that's because Denmark is conveniently situated near neighbours which struggle to get enough electricity in winter, and wind power in Denmark just so happens to be produced mostly in winter. If you mix your renewables correctly, there are LOTS of places around the world that are in similar luck

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shotgun ( 30919 )

          But, this whole argument goes away if the solar plant they're building uses molten salts.

          • But, this whole argument goes away if the solar plant they're building uses molten salts.

            That's a lot like the arguments against nuclear power going away if new nuclear reactors are built are using molten salts.

            If you want to bring up some experimental technology in solar power to make the case for solar power then nuclear power advocates should be able to bring up experimental technology to make the case for nuclear power. Just like molten salt solar can use high temperature salts for thermal energy storage and load following so can molten salt nuclear reactors.

            If pumped hydro can be used for

    • You can be as unimpressed as you want. It along with other projects elevated India to one of the countries with the highest level alternative energy generation in the world.

      Just remember to be even less impressed with whatever country you *think* is better.

      • Sigh, I have got to stop drinking and posting at the same time. Wrong country. But same goal. India has a plan to do 20% renewable energy by 2020. What's the USA's plan, throw baby seals into coal power plants to make the coal look greener?

  • Five miles from the Nile and twenty miles from Aswan may be remote, but Egypt has far, far more remote locations. Like Bugs Bunny remote.

  • Upcoming comments in this thread (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @04:25PM (#57036036)

    - "But night!!"
    - "But this won't immediately cover all electricity generation, so it's useless."
    - "Nuclear is the only answer. Please ignore the multiple nuclear plants under construction that have been abandoned in multiple countries."
    - "I suddenly really, really, really care about birds, yet have completely forgotten about harm to birds from pollution."
    - "What we really need is a physically impossible electrical grid that covers (insert very large geographic area here)."
    - Elon Musk is a hero or a villain.
    - "My calculations based on retail power costs in a different place, as well as a massive overestimate of the maintenance costs, indicate this plant could never possibly be profitable."

    • Thanks. That saves me a lot of reading. I think you forgot "teh baseload" though.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Don't forget "it's a boondoggle for big solar" and "solar panels pollute worse than coal!"

    • That's a nice list of predictions, here's mine:
      "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

      I see nuclear power has now finally gone beyond being ignored. Seems we're at the "laugh at you" stage now. There is no carbon free energy solution for any nation, that wishes to enter the modern economy, that does not include nuclear power.

      Here's a short video giving a quick review of some of the problems with ignoring nuclear power:
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

      Here's a lo

      • That's a nice list of predictions, here's mine: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

        Seems like you have a bit of underdog syndrome going there blindseer. Nuclear has been going since the 50's when it was "too cheap to meter" and received billions of dollars of taxpayer funded subsidies - and still does.

        Nuclear Ideologists have been laughing at solar, wind and geothermal projects for the entire time. You're a prime example of someone fighting those visions of the future by attempting to hold us to a failing nuclear past.

        You've ignored solar, laughed at solar and you've been fighting s

        • Seems like you have a bit of underdog syndrome going there blindseer. Nuclear has been going since the 50's when it was "too cheap to meter" and received billions of dollars of taxpayer funded subsidies - and still does.

          I can't find the precise numbers right now but nuclear does get billions in subsidies, but wind and solar get many times more. Nuclear power produces about 20% of the electricity in the USA, while wind and solar produce less than 10% combined. That means we get much more electricity for each dollar spent on nuclear than from wind and solar.

          You're all about blaming NIMBYs and greenies for the Nuclear industries woes instead of the fact that it isn't a cost effective investment.

          Huh? I'm not sure what you are saying here. It's pretty apparent that the reason nuclear power is not cost effective is because of the NIMBYs and "greenies" constantl

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by MrKaos ( 858439 )

            Seems like you have a bit of underdog syndrome going there blindseer. Nuclear has been going since the 50's when it was "too cheap to meter" and received billions of dollars of taxpayer funded subsidies - and still does.

            I can't find the precise numbers right now but nuclear does get billions in subsidies, but wind and solar get many times more. Nuclear power produces about 20% of the electricity in the USA, while wind and solar produce less than 10% combined. That means we get much more electricity for each dollar spent on nuclear than from wind and solar.

            I have the precise numbers. 2005 U.S Energy Policy Act.

            Solar and wind are covered under SEC.812, the two combined get one section . They have to raise 20% of their own funding for research and %50 of their own funding for Commercial with no other appropriations under the Energy Act. Instead they have to seek funding through the Small Business Act.

            As opposed to Nuclear that has twenty five sections dedicated to it, with funding allocations in various sections. Let's see:

            • $1662000000 from 2005-2020, tha

      • I see nuclear power has now finally gone beyond being ignored. Seems we're at the "laugh at you" stage now.

        Nope. We aren't laughing. We're shaking our heads at your uselessness.

        France, the most nuclear-power-friendly country on the planet, just abandoned their latest nuclear power plant project mid-construction. Because it costs too much.

        Doesn't matter how many youtube videos you put out, you can't get the cost down low enough....Perhaps the next cost-cutting step should be not producing youtube videos.

        • Imagine instead of nuclear power we were talking about space flight.

          "We can't send people into space!"
          "Why not?"
          "Because of the Challenger explosion!"
          "You do realize that was 32 years ago, don't you? With technology that's 40 years old now."
          "But getting into space is so expensive and dangerous, with every launch needing handcrafted rockets and a history of so many failures."
          "Rockets come off assembly lines now, built by highly automated manufacturing, using redundant safety mechanisms and fail safe systems

    • You forgot about the birds. We can't dare kill a bird.

  • Power Plants (Score:5, Informative)

    by StikyPad ( 445176 ) on Monday July 30, 2018 @04:29PM (#57036072) Homepage

    Egypt also has a ton of wind turbines along the coast of the Red Sea, which I was surprised to learn. These are positive steps.

    That said, Egypt is also in the process of opening not one, but three gas power plants totaling 14.4GW of new capacity, dwarfing their solar initiative.

    I have friends who sell and install private solar in Egypt, but with grid power directly owned and subsidized by the state, it's hard to compete. Which is a shame, because Egypt's air pollution and AQI is right up there with India and China, and has only gotten worse over the past decade. Unfortunately the government seems about as keen to actually address air pollution as it does to support human rights, which is to say, not very much at all.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      How many gas/coal plants are they closing? When people talk about all the fossil plants being built in Germany and China they always forget to mention that they are closing even more.

      • Probably none. At least not as part of any effort to reduce emissions. The population of Egypt has grown by 30% (!) in the past 15 years despite negative net immigration, and increasing capacity is the primary focus.

        Also, a proposal for a new 6GW coal fired plant was just won by a Chinese company this year. https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com]

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

          This bugs the hell out of me, You even get environmentalists Blasély stating that gas is fine as an intermediatory step between coal and ??????, but they're too fucking lazy to even decide what the ??????? is or when it should be in place.

          The point is if we carry on like this then we'll be burning more and more gas until it's all gone and that'd be very bad for global CO2 levels. And then what? I can just see some countries going back to coal when gas starts getting expensive.

          It simply ain't good

    • Don't worry, once their economy collapses most of the population will try to flee to Europe and after a while civil war will take care of the real problem.

      Overpopulation.

  • Bore through the Atlas Mountains to re-establish the inland sea that use to be there 6000 years ago. Would re-create rainfall in the western Sahara and add countless farming & fishing jobs.

  • They need to get on the phone with Elon Musk or at least someone who can provide them with energy storage to cover the surplus they'll generate during peak daylight hours.
  • So did Eqypt kill the head of the multi-billion dollar dam project in Ethiopia because it could affect the Nile, or because the power generated would compete with this project?

    So, the Egypt killing him part is speculation, but the head engineer of a $5 billion dam project being built on a Nile tributary in Ethiopia was recently found dead in his car in what looked suspiciously like a faked suicide. There's a lot of potential for big energy money in Northeast Africa right now, enough to make whichever stat

    • > So, the Egypt killing him part is speculation

      Yeah, let's feed into that because the internet definitely needs more bogus speculation.

    • Egyptian government and their allies (including the west) probably strong armed Ethiopia into delaying the dam. If that had already happened it is much more likely that the Ethiopian government had him killed to cover up that fact.

      He had become irrelevant to Egypt, but a thorn in the side of Ethiopian government.

  • "It will single-handedly put Egypt on the clean energy map"

    Right, because Aswan doesn't exist.

  • This was paid for by a state guaranteed loan from Germany, which is never going to be paid back because Egypt won't stop being an economic basket case. Western governments are using loans as disguised foreign aid to prop up countries in a Malthusian trap ... trying to keep the status quo going for a bit longer. It's all going to come tumbling down, the only question is if there will be an Europe at the end of it or if we will join Africa and the Middle-East's descend into Anarchy.

    I'm guessing we will, I'm a

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