Guest skewering by David Middleton
From Inside Climate News…
24-Hour Solar Energy: Molten Salt Makes It Possible, and Prices Are Falling Fast
Molten salt storage in concentrated solar power plants could meet the electricity-on-demand role of coal and gas, allowing more old, fossil fuel plants to retire.
If molten salt was making 24-hour solar energy possible… It would be making it happen at least once-in-a-while. If the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Facility is supposed to be an example of 24-hour molten salt solar power, it’s not a very good one.
The best month in Crescent Dunes short history was September 2016, when it averaged 9.2 hours of electricity per day.
|Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration|
|Series ID: ELEC.PLANT.GEN.57275-SUN-ALL.M megawatthours|
|Month||MWh||Capacity Factor||Hrs/d of Electricity|
Dandy Don Meredith had “canard” for this as well…
From October 2015 through October 2017, Crescent Dunes generated 172,413 MWh of electricity. $737,000,000 divided by 172,413 MWh equals $4,274 per MWh… $4.27/kWh.
“Crescent Dunes is expected to generate 482,000 megawatt-hours of clean energy per year“… 100% output of 110 MW is 966,240 MWh/yr. They only expected a 50% capacity factor with the fracking molten salt storage.
Inside Climate News needs to edit their headline…