Vineland Solar One Completes First Phase of 4.1-Megawatt Solar Power System (New Jersey)

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsNAPR1672.htm

Vineland Solar One Partnership and SunPower Corporation have completed 2.3 megawatts of a total 4.1-megawatt solar power system being constructed at the Landis Sewerage Authority in Vineland, New Jersey. When fully built next year, it will be the largest operating solar power system in the state.

Vineland Solar One Partnership, which developed and financed the project, is a consortium of organizations including Conectiv Energy, the Vineland Municipal Electric Utility (VMEU), the City of Vineland, and the Landis Sewerage Authority. SunPower designed and is constructing the system. Conectiv Energy owns the solar renewable energy credits (SRECs) associated with the system.

"I applaud the partnership of public and private organizations that was formed to bring this major new solar development to our state, and help New Jersey meet its aggressive clean energy goals," said New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine. "The Vineland Solar One partnership complements the Energy Master Plan I presented last year, which will strengthen New Jersey's economy by reducing consumers' overall energy expenditures, creating jobs, improving the current energy infrastructure and meeting our environmental goals."

"We are extremely happy with the project and the partnership," said Vineland's Mayor Robert Romano. "The project not only provides clean, renewable energy for our citizens, it does so in a way that saves money for our Electric Utility and Sewerage Authority customers. Vineland Solar One is a win for all involved."

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...are GOVERNMENT OWNED and OPERATED companies. We're one of the few cities in the State that handles all its own power and water completely through not-for-profit government-overseen companies.

This goes to show what can be done when you're worried about the end product and not the profits.

is the same as it has always been: Zero.

These systems - for which there is no plan to dispose of the waste - function at about 10% of capacity utilization - and are enormously expensive.

To see the pathetic performance of solar PV electronic waste in the Northeastern United States one can access direct live performance, on line, up to the minute.

I have linked one such record, the pathetic system at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Massachusetts elsewhere.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/1/703151/-Live,-From-the-Massachusetts-Museum-of-Contemporary-Art:-The-Solar-System.">Live, From the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art: The Solar System.

I noted that the system, financed with a $700,000 grant produces an amount of energy that is sufficient to provide the energy for one fat lazy uneducated American, a capacity utilization of about 10.6%, meaning that it doesn't produce as much energy as a boiler in a typical high school.

Typically however, the solar industry, in its continuous attempt to greenwash its service to the gas industry, deliberately misrepresents itself by citing peak power ratings as meaningful.

One can see from the MOCA data that the number of times that the MOCA system actually produced peak power, even for 15 minutes is, um, zero.

But you'd know better than that.

Still, you are right pointing out the problem of PV e-waste as the industry ought to get on it.

New technologies make it profitable to recycle the wastes for the raw material content.

:rofl:

I mean, it's not going to produce 4 megawatts for a 24 hour period, we know that much. The power output can at most be half that.

It reminds me of the old "hard drive capacity" debate. Hard drives would be announced to be able to hold "10GB." Before high density hard drives came out floppy disks and the like calculated aggregate bytes as powers of two. So under that methodology 1 billion bytes would be 2^30 or 1,073,741,824 bytes. Terminology such as "GiB" was adopted over time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_prefix#History

In this case I would think we would be well served if a PV power plant announced "megawattage." and "real megawattage." I'm sure it'll happen one day, but as of now it is not usually advertised that way.

The industry standard used across all generating technologies is to establish the maximum theoretical output and then measure the actual performance or the expected performance under a given set of parameters as a percentage of that output. That's the "capacity factor" you've undoubtedly heard about.

Did you know this is one of Nnad's favorite red herrings? Sorry if that is a bit complex for you personally, but that's the way it's been done forever and it seems extremely unlikely that the desire of nuclear supporters to spin a non-issue for the uninformed is going to be sufficient reason to change this accurate rating method.

...have a "one megabyte is 1000000 bytes" disclaimers.

I think genuine, real, honest power output numbers would be a boon to all industries. All they have to do is give out the MWh for a given plant, data which is readily available from the IEA, but is not readily given in press releases like this one. "It doesn't work" doesn't explain why they don't.

I don't think it's a non-issue, and I'm not a nuclear advocate.

You should reread the definition I gave of capacity factor because you obviously don't fully understand it. There is no way to produce the type number you are suggesting except the way it is being done - period.

You say you aren't a nuclear supporter yet you routinely parrot virtually every bogus slander they make against the renewable energy systems. so you'll have to excuse my confusion. For example the other day you blurted out the totally discredited nonsense about a shortage of lithium. Now, what will you do, defend that bit of misinformation or take the time to look at the evidence that clearly shows it is an untrue claim made by someone with an interest in a competing battery technology?

As for the capacity factor issue, if you aren't just pushing nuclear claptrap tell me this: why hasn't someone raised this same bit of nonsense at any time in the past 50 years? I mean, we've *routinely* been building power plants during that time that have been designed to have an operating capacity factor of less (often significantly less) than 10%. Why the special focus on renewables except that nuclear energy is using a necessary complexity to try and create the appearance that people are being deceived to support an agenda?

Duh? Solar PV cannot possibly come close to its claimed numbers.

They have only gradually increased their capacity factor: http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/txt/ptb0902.html

The nameplate value?

Why not argue the real problem - a population educated to the level that nearly half believe the earth is less than 10K years old?

You still haven't explained why the sudden urge to highlight something that has never before been a problem?

When the last 50 natural gas power plants were built in your area was their estimated annual capacity factor a part of the public discussion?

How many of them have demonstrated CFs of less than 10%?

Did you insist the anticipated CF used to justify their purchase be highlighted in a letter to the editor or in any other public venue for discussion?

I didn't think so.

So tell me again, deliberate or not, how you aren't shilling for nuclear?

When somebody buys a car, they know that the list price is not going to be the total price of the car.
Aside from haggling, there are going to be a variety of finance options and insurance coverages which will affect the total price.
Most people are able to deal with this.

Suffixes are used to clarify power measurements.
"Wp" is used to indicate peak watts,
"Wt" is used to indicate thermal watts,
"We" is used to indicate electric watts.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Electrical_and_thermal_watts

The ISO standards for "mega" and "kilo" have always been 1,000,000 and 1,000.
Most people in Europe use the metric system, where a kilogram is still 1,000 grams.
I hope we don't have to start putting disclaimers on power plants that "one megawatt is 1000000 watts and not 1048576 watts" like they do on disk drives.

but they were only one-and-a-half-by-three-and-a-half!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumber#Dimensional_lumber
:)

sorry to break that to you...

:rofl:

All power plants are designed around their name plate rating not what they average.

With solar & wind, you don't get to choose when they are operating at 100%.

Electricity Demand Curve
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=electricity+demand+curve&search_type=&aq=f