Nevada Solar One is a concentrated solar power plant, with a nominal capacity of 64 MW and maximum steam turbine power output up to 72 MW net (75 MW gross), spread over an area of . The projected CO2 emissions avoided are equivalent to taking approximately 20,000 cars off the road. The project required an investment of $266 million USD, and the project officially went into operation in June 2007.ACCIONA’s Nevada Solar One. Electricity production is estimated to be 134 GWh (gigawatt hours) per year.

In 2007, when the plant came on line, it was the second solar thermal energy (STE) power plant built in the United States in more than 16 years, and in 2007, the largest STE plant built in the world since 1991. It is located in Eldorado Valley in the southwest fringe of Boulder City, Nevada, and was built in that city's Energy Resource Zone, which requires renewable generation as part of plant development permits; Nevada Solar One was approved as part of Duke Energy's larger El Dorado Energy project, which built 1 GW of electrical generation capacity. The solar trough generation was built by Acciona Solar Power, a partially owned subsidiary of Spanish conglomerate Acciona Energy. Lauren Engineers & Constructors (Abilene, TX) was the EPC contractor for the project. Acciona purchased a 55 percent stake in Solargenix (formerly Duke Solar), and Acciona owns 95 percent of the project. Nevada Solar One is unrelated to the Solar One power plant in California.

History In 2006, located north of Tucson, Arizona Public Service's Saguaro Solar Facility opened, with 1 MW of electrical generation capacity. Nevada Solar One went online for commercial use on June 27, 2007. It uses similar technology and was constructed over a period of 16 months. The total project site is approximately , while the solar collectors cover .

Technology Nevada Solar One uses proprietary technology to track the sun's location and concentrate its rays during peak demand hours. The plant uses 760 parabolic trough concentrators with more than 182,000 mirrors that concentrate the sun's rays onto more than 18,240 solar receivers placed at the focal axis of the troughs. These contain a heat transfer fluid that heats up to and is used to produce steam that drives a Siemens SST-700 steam turbine, adapted to the specific requirements of the CSP technology, which is connected to a generator to produce electricity.

The mirrors are manufactured by Flabeg AG in Germany. In contrast to the power tower concentrator concept that California's original Solar One project uses. The specially coated tubes, made of glass and steel, were designed and produced by Solel Solar Systems as well as by Schott Glass in Germany. Motion control was supplied by Parker Hannifin, from components by Ansco Machine Company.

Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as the southwestern United States. Using thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can be extended to meet base load needs.Spain Pioneers Grid-Connected Solar-Tower Thermal Power p. 3. Given Nevada's land and sun resources, the state has the theoretical ability to have more than 600 GW of electrical generation capacity using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One.Nevada Solar One Goes Online It has been proposed that massive expansion of solar plants such as Nevada Solar One has the potential to provide sufficient electricity to power the entire United States.Sunny Outlook: Can Sunshine Provide All U.S. Electricity?

Parabolic concentrator facilities have been successfully operating in California's Mojave Desert commercially since 1984, with a combined generating capacity of 354MW from the Solar Energy Generating Systems.

Production Nevada Solar One's production is as follows (values in GW·h).

Year Solar Fossil Total200741.21 0.38 41.592008122.69 0.91 123.312009120.65 2.43 123.072010133.00 1.16 134.162011128.26 1.99 130.262012128.94 1.39 130.332013112.79 2.31 115.102014116.23 2.58 118.802015105.65 2.14 107.792016116.89 2.24 119.132017118.03 2.58 120.602018110.38 2.57 112.95

Fossil backup, night time preservation, and morning pre-heating, is provided by natural gas and provides up to 2% of total output.

+Solar generation (MW·h) of Nevada Solar One Year Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Total 2007 1,876 8,827 10,251 10,186 6,075 3,101 896 41,212 2008 1,942 4,837 11,696 14,759 14,868 19,308 13,935 12,987 12,785 9,141 4,207 2,222 122,687 2009 2,239 3,971 11,982 13,920 16,096 11,638 13,839 16,117 13,314 8,754 5,838 2,940 120,648 2010 2,147 4,143 10,349 13,261 18,850 20,674 14,863 17,989 16,220 7,186 5,476 1,842 133,000 2011 3,137 6,370 8,772 14,625 16,516 20,698 13,698 16,732 10,752 9,420 4,333 3,210 128,263 2012 2,740 5,814 9,719 13,152 19,733 21,710 14,140 12,159 12,798 9,679 5,003 2,288 128,935 2013 2,641 7,023 10,355 14,613 17,063 18,402 10,552 10,166 5,149 9,382 4,142 3,302 112,790 2014 3,336 4,976 10,120 12,321 15,501 19,698 12,011 11,987 12,007 8,145 4,609 1,516 116,227 2015 2,051 6,375 9,993 13,982 9,993 15,337 12,565 11,308 9,221 6,684 5,624 2,519 105,652 2016 1,693 7,797 8,403 8,547 16,628 17,835 17,669 12,517 12,274 6,715 4,924 1,885 116,887 2017 2,560 3,876 10,683 13,305 16,753 19,672 10,770 13,111 10,236 9,839 3,908 3,312 118,025 2018 284 2,947 7,996 13,492 15,677 19,517 12,645 11,296 12,636 7,310 4,474 2,105 110,379 2019 2,041 4,185 9,035 10,898 12,168 16,321 15,335 15,317 10,316 9,736 3,583 1,306 110,241 2020 2,105 6,121 6,348 8,284 15,581 15,388 17,367 12,717 9,634 8,040 3,841 1,940 107,366 2021 882 5,565 8,056 13,261 16,038 12,173 8,571 11,918 8,601 5,466 3,761 1,417 95,709 2022 2,277 5,085 7,717 11,909 15,303 12,204 10,430 6,734 8,782 7,323 2,791 1,201 91,756 2023 1,706 3,105 4,942 11,597 12,823 12,973 13,971 9,485 8,149 7,474 3,319 1,759 91,303Total (2007–2023) 1,851,080

In popular culture Nevada Solar One served as inspiration for the HELIOS One solar power plant's geographic location in the 2010 videogame Fallout: New Vegas.

See also

Copper Mountain Solar Facility Dish Stirling List of solar thermal power stations Renewable energy in the United States Renewable portfolio standard Solar power in Nevada Solar power plants in the Mojave Desert Solar power tower Solar thermal energy

References

PowerMag: Nevada Solar One, Boulder City, Nevada (12/15/2007)

External links

Acciona Energy North America's official site Largest solar power plant in a generation to be built in Nevada Solar Steam at Nevada Solar One