CHINA TO PILOT SOLAR-BIOMASS HYBRID

Solar and Biomass Plants to Work in Tandem in China
Todd Woody, January 11, 2010 (NY Times)

"China’s plans to build 2,000 megawatts of solar thermal power using technology from a California company, eSolar, will also include the construction of biomass power plants to generate electricity when the sun sets.

"The solar and biomass plants will share turbines and other infrastructure, reducing the projects’ cost and allowing around-the-clock electricity production, according to Bill Gross, eSolar’s chairman…eSolar will license its “power tower” technology to Penglai Electric, which will manage the construction of the power plants over the next decade…Another Chinese company, the China Shaanxi Yulin Huayang New Energy Company, will own and operate the first projects to be built in the 66-square-mile Yulin Energy Park in northern China."

click to enlarge

"A local shrub grown in the surrounding region to fight desertification, called the sand willow, will supply fuel for the biomass power plants, according to Penglai Electric…A 107-megawatt project in California being developed by a Portuguese developer plans to use a similar biomass hybrid solar design…

"…[O]ne issue with solar power plants in China is the large amount of land they require. …[T]he relatively small footprint of an eSolar plant compared with other solar technologies proved attractive to [Penglai Electric,] the Chinese developer of the $5 billion project."

click to enlarge

"ESolar’s power plants deploy fields of mirrors called heliostats to focus the sun’s rays on a water-filled boiler that on a tower. The heat vaporizes the water and the resulting high-pressure steam is piped to a power block, where it drives an electricity-generating turbine…

"The company uses a software control system and imaging technology to control 176,000 small mirrors that form arrays at its standard 46-megawatt power plant. The software positions the mirrors to create a virtual parabola to focus the sun on the receiver tower…That allows eSolar to make the mirrors cheaply and pack them close together to reduce the size of the power plant…[I]n California unskilled workers need 15 minutes training to learn how to install the solar fields…"