Madrid cuts subsidies for solar power plants

The Financial Times ^ | 8/1/2010 | Victor Mallet in Madrid

[PA Engineer]

Spain probably is the most ideal country in Europe for solar because of the constant sunlight and fairly arid climate. i.e. if “it don’t” work there, “it won’t” work anywhere.

The only problem the greenie weenies cannot overcome is the reality of operating reserve. Spain is lying about the cuts. The economics are not there without a grid wide storage capacity. They are paying for their electricity twice. The only place some economics are justified is source demand at the individual level. This might include solar hot water and a load peak shaving system (invertor and small battery backup). Selling power back to the grid does not negate the need for fossil or nuclear generating capacity.

[Frantzie]

Thanks for the analysis. I recall something in the UK Telegraph, which is a good paper, on a fellow in Scotland who figured out how to store excess wind power. I am not sure if it was with batteries.

I agree about source demand at the individual level - i.e. hot water heaters and maybe some solar attic fans and a few other things.

[bruinbirdman]

"The only problem the greenie weenies cannot overcome is the reality of operating reserve."

"Madrid . . .cheaper electricity tariff for consumers between midnight and 6am,. . ."

France has a massive overcapacity in nuke power at night. So much so that they discout the electricity to other countries, particularly other countries that emphasize alternative fuels, like Denmark and Germany and Spain.

yitbos

[J Aguilar]

Good point and good analysis. Individualy, the economics of solar hot water and solar radiant heating work for most of Spain, and photovoltaic might work for driving conditioning air systems at peak hours for some users.

Red Eléctrica, the Spanish grid operator, had to arrange new control systems and centers to cope with more than 15% of the electricity being generated by windmills, whose output is not constant. Please also remember that Spain has a lot of mountains, which enables the building of huge pumped-storage electricity plants, such as Cortes de Pallás 1200 MVA project.