Predicting Epic Failures at Alamosa, another Green boondoggle

Posted on June 9, 2012 by George B.
Epic Failure

Epic Failure

 

 

 

  As of 06/25/2012, we do have some facts about the leader in Concentrated Photo Voltaic Solar.

  • The 5MW plant at Hatch is under-performing,
  • The Amonix 7700 5MW power plant has been in operation for a year, power production figures grow worse. 
  • Power Production is typically in the low 60 percent region of claimed power production, when other Solar PV Power Plants are making 95-100% of their claimed power.
  • Web pages in Europe point to the Alamosa 30MW power plant as proof that CPV is the investment to consider, and we see nothing but silence from the DOE, NREL, Congentrix, Amonix, and others regarding the real power production.
  • Most of the Green Media Websites are still content to promote the claimed power production figures.

After a Blitzkrieg style marketing effort appearing to have come from Amonix, we see nothing but silence after the equipment becomes operational… that is never a good sign!

If there were no Subsidies, Grants, guaranteed Loans, Green Energy Fund Managers looking for anything to invest in…. we’d have no problem identifying who the chumps are. 

There is never a better opportunity to learn about technology than current events. And here we see that no one seems to be interested. The very least we can do is preserve the information on the WEbsites of Amonix, NREL, NetEra, Congentrix, and a few others for further study.

Predicting the future, I’m taking bets:

 The Amonix 7700s will prove far too expensive to make any kind of return on investment compared to other technologies available prior, during, and after the production of the Amonix 7700s shipped to Hatch and Alamosa.

  • No credible source will be found that will endorse the Amonix Wind Protection theory.
  • No credible source will be found to endorse the claims that the Amonix 7700 was a field proven power plant.
  • The Gang Greens will clearly ‘out themselves’ as they will continue to show zero interest in the facts, the Marketing hype is all they need, this is more a religious movement for them, it’s Faith based, who in hell needs facts anyway?

 

And.. we need ask… those Amonix Managers, did they slip out the door like thieves in the night? Should they have known things were not quite right? Have they already proven that nothing is more important than a paycheck? 

Yes.. you’re right, I have the questions… not the answers, but don’t we know… this IS the test for the entire Alternative Energy Industry, together we’ll find out if they have a shred of caring when it comes to a return on investment.

GB  

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Building Design, Critical Thinking, DIYer Skills, Strange Stuff, UtterPower Articles, Your Wasted Tax Dollars | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Lidia Ball, Jon Ralston, Guy Blanchard, Failed Clean Energy Project NV?

Posted on June 2, 2012 by George B.

Easter Island 7700

Here’s a great learning experience, Listen carefully to Jon’s words, does he come off as impartial, or is he the Cheer Leader for committing every rate payer in Nevada to making the investment in a hurry so they don’t pass up the once in a lifetime opportunity?  Take some notes as you watch this..  The  discussion of the transmission lines, did you know that  Wind Energy Investors in Washington State >assumed< they had full access to a transmission line, and now they are attempting to sue the FED (we taxpayers) for their losses when the transmission is not available to them?

Watch bobble head Guy Blanchard push for “do it now’, everyone wants our stuff, don’t miss out on your chance to get it first, we are proven leaders, we have a proven product, don’t lose out…. we’ll  have so many orders, we won’t be able to build it for you in Nevada.  Isn’t that the same thing the car salesmen told you when you said you’d have to think it over?      

 

So.. it’s now 6/2/2012, we have a 2MW Amonix power plant at the University of Arizona, what is the rated output and what is the power production at the Moment? We have another Amonix Power Plant in Hatch New Mexico, how is that power plant performing? The mention of Alamosa in this Face to Face, it’s now a reality, and it’s producing power, does it live up to what was promised?

Lidia Ball, an expert in Solar PV? We’ll find out When Jon Ralston invites her back along with Guy Blanchard to find out what went right, and what went wrong with Amonix.

We’ll find out if Jon Ralston delivers the facts, or if he’s part of the cheer leading squad..

You just can’t argue with the facts, and they’re right there in the field!  Today 11 of the 36 Amonix trackers at the University of Arizona no longer track the sun, and 8 or more at Hatch New Mexico are broken as well, and… just what kind of power do these power plants make compared to the advertised output? Is there anyone interested in reporting the real story?  

Do consider turning up your pant legs, there’s a lot of BS out there to step in, and the Media thinks it’s their job to tell you what you need to hear  instead of report the facts and let you decide.  It’s what I think, and comments are welcome, maybe you’ll tell me what I have wrong?  Of great value to all Americans is a good understanding of what we actually got out of our investments and those others made. Was it irrigatable farm land that was used for the Amonix Power plants at Hatch New Mexico and Alamosa Colorado? If we were truly interested in conservation, we’d put this topic in abeyance for about six years and look back on it.. What did the power plants provide to humanity (return on investment), and what could have been produced if the land had been left in hands of agriculture? What were the jobs gained or lost?  

GB

Posted in Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, Fighting Propaganda, In The News, Strange Stuff | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

CPV Solar, The Real Numbers

Posted on May 30, 2012 by George B.

Easter Island 7700

 

Solar PV Energy is little different from rain in some ways, it’s not how much that falls from the sky, but how much we can channel into our bucket and make use of.

That might be a major problem with the Hatch New Mexico power plant that the Department of Energy helped to development and put in place. Let’s keep the issue simple, look at the following graph taken today from EPEs website at 1650 hours..

Amonix 5-30-2012- 1650 hours

Amonix 5-30-2012- 1650 hours

As you can see, the trackers were able to capture a little energy during the 0700 hours, and the power plant never seemed to generate even half of it’s rated 5.040 mega watt output durign any hour of the day. It’s likely the wind came up again today, but at no time this year.. even with blue skys and no wind forecast, I see far less solar energy captured and going through the meter into El Pasco Electric’s grid than the DOE’s advertised output.  This likely means a much larger cost per KWH of energy production, and suggests we need re-visit the argument that CPV is viable as a commercial power plant at this time.

The Solar PV world is full of stories about Concentrated Photo Voltaic Power Plants.  Some suggest it may be the future as per Solar PV, and no doubt the US DOE has altered the game … for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer.

What I find mind boggling, is the total lack of interest in real power production numbers for CPV power plants, and at first I thought it could be some kind of organized effort to suppress them and re-direct the conversation back to the advertised Marketeer’s predictions.

The reality of the situation might be far too simple for most technical people to grasp! We need study who most of the reporters are, and what their back grounds are.  A little effort on your part might find that the Author of the last CPV article you read is a ‘Word Smith’, a person with about 100 times or more experience than yourself as per WEB Development and related skills, but may have zero interest, and zero personal knowledge of mechanical and electrical devices, he only writes about the topic because it’s his job to write!

The Word Smith’s Focus is often increasing viewership, this is often the way they get paid.  This AM, I received an automated email praising one of my posts about CPV, and asking me to visit ‘PV Insider’, a UK site. Wow, and Impressive name.. sounds just like something a marketeer would come up with.  A quick look, and I note the same pattern as I find here in North America, A WEBsite than looks as if it’s automated, a collection of articles written by people in the Industry that have a vested interest in the outcome of a product, should we expect them to measure according to our rule?

Where do we go to get an un-biased opinion? I think the first step is to recognize what the prime mission of the Author is.  Some are fully focused on creating WEB content that will attract visitors, this will allow them to sell advertisements and produce revenue.  If you do a little research, you might find that the company that owns the WEB site you are reading, has several Websites that are designed to attract a certain audience, and you then  note that ‘Joe Smith’ wrote an article in the morning about the care and feeding of Spider Monkeys, and in the afternoon, he wrote an overview of developments in CPV solar.

A lot of this activity is done by cut and paste, and Web Tools that search the internet for stories that a website can repost to add to their web content to help generate traffic.

Where do you go to get the facts? How do you measure the value of CPV? In order to answer that you need access ‘preceived value’ and real value.  You will be amazed how differently people process the value question. It reminds me of the School Teacher that told me she didn’t care if solar made a return on investment for anyone or not, she wanted to do the right thing, and wanted it installed on her roof right away.  The Technician wihtin us all immediately asks….. should we offer her the fake solar panels at a fraction of the cost?

I made a recent visit to the DOE’s Website, and looked over the NREL’s coverage of CPV, it’s little different than the blogs and other sites that appear dedicated to solar PV and alternative energy. The CPV section seems to ignore the reality that we have real CPV power plants on line to study and now making power.  Why not make an assessment of the real numbers, do they meet the predictions?  Does the DOE ignore the facts?  But that’s my question, and perhaps it doesn’t even enter into the mind of Joe Smith the word smith who is fully focused on the RELAY of information, and building an inventory of words that others might search for. do not expect him to have the same passion as you do for the topic, nor should you expect him to have the same values..

A trip to the DOE’s website might cause you to praise their efforts, you may be one of those persons that believes in that analogy that if you give enough monkeys access to word processors, great works will be created. Others might have noted that the infusion of money destroys about as many companies and it helps build.

I do know if they were trying to please me, they’d be focused on the real power production numbers, and they would be carefully weighing those numbers against the installed cost of the power plant, monthly fees, land taxes, the cost of repairs and maintenance. Without this effort, we really know nothing other than the fact that a great deal of money was spent. At the very least, we can learn what went right, and what went wrong..  Fact is, there’s a large following of people who operate on faith alone, and that helps create the playing field for all kinds of games.

Who Has An Interest In The Real Numbers?

For an answer to that question, I guess we need to analyze who will be impacted by reality?  That study will be more technical in nature, fairy dust, word count, how a WEB crawler measures the value has little bearing on the outcome.

Will we look to the volunteer blogger at the Huffington Post for the Story or might we zero in on the POWER COMPANY who is forced to confront reality? Yes, it’s a fact that the power company is mostly focused on serving it’s customers, and making at least enough money to continue doing so.  Perhaps we can make use of this fact to help us access the reality of CPV?

A Public Utility is far more transparent than many entities, and since there’s a Comission looking over their shoulder most times, they are very prudent investors out of necessity. It may be a State law that forces their investment in AE, it may be that they think it a prudent idea if they have areas with plenty of wind or Sun energy, but they generally see themselves as playing with real money, and betting their futures on making good decisions.

With the above in mind, I think it’s time we get our information from the more reliable source.  The Power Company MUST have the highest standards in measuring Energy into their grid. Those who have an interest in the facts should note that El Paso Electric has a meter up for the Amonix 5MW Power Plant owned by Next Era.  Unlike the other entities we might consult, the Power Company normally employs folks with Technical backgrounds, and they use them to address technical issues.

While others look to those who only pass along Marketing hype a year or two old, we should think about getting the facts from the Power Company, they are forced to operate in the world of facts, and they only survive by understanding the realities of generating electrical energy, serving  their customers, and providing some kind of value for their share holders. why would you go elsewhere for the story?

GB

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, In The News, Things I like, Trusted Vendors, UtterPower Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Martha Symko-Davies – Disruptive Technologies

Posted on May 22, 2012 by George B.

Easter Island 7700

Disruptive Technologies… hmmm, I’ll bet there’s more than one definition.

Imagine the increased value of a TED talk if the Speaker was prepared to take a half dozen real questions from real people in the audience.  Watch the video, consider writing down a few questions that come to your mind as you listen to her talk, and then consider challenging mine.      

Material Sciences? Hey.. they don’t give away PHDs in this stuff! No doubt Martha has the Degree(s), and to get it, she has to have passion for the Nuts and bolts, so we might ask.. just how much control does She have over what the NREL promotes?  Keep this one question in mind.. “Why is it that no one at the DOE seems to be interested in the results of the Amonix investment?”  The logical conclusion one must draw is that the invesment was made with no expectations of a favorable result….     

Notice Martha’s mention of the 30MW Alamosa Colorado Amonix 7700 Power Plant.  The 5MW Hatch New Mexico power plant is ON line! This project was deployed prior to the larger Alamosa power plant.

It is now 5/22/2012, with that in mind, let’s look at the NREL’s promotion of Amonix by visiting this page.

Considering that the NREL calls itself a LAB, we’d expect Technicians there to be all giddy about the deployment of the NREL’s touted Multi Junction Cells that Martha promotes, and a little follow-up of that technology right? I mean.. could you give birth to a new and highly efficient Multi Junction Cell, and then not at least ask… “so how’s it working?”

Here’s my short list of questions:

What’s  different between the 5MWs of Amonix CPV trackers at Hatch, and the 30MWs of trackers in Alamosa Colorado? It appears that the trackers in Hatch have only been in the field for a year, is that long enough to prove a thing? Did we really need to help fund another 30MWs of trackers at Alamosa, and couldn’t we have waited a bit to see how the Hatch power plant works out?

We know that EPE is buying the 5MW  expected to be produced by the Amonix Trackers installed at Hatch, but it appears that the actual amount is a rather ‘disruptive’ 30% short of 5MW, and this is the peak solar production period of the year right?  It’s slightly cooler, very close to the summer solstice, and the proven technologies like thin film, mono crystalline, etc. ARE running at full rated capacity in a few checks I have made.

Show me the math

Show me the math

 Zach says: “Show me the math.”   

Were did that 30% go? Will it come back, and if not will Hatch lose another 30% in the next rolling year?

Isn’t the Alamosa power plant installed? Does the NREL have any interest in what’s going on there, or are they running around in circles looking to bring on more ‘disruptive’ technology?

I’m looking forward to a page at the NREL called “Ask Martha”, a place where we can go to get the answers we’d expect since we’re being forced to fund part of the bill. .. and of course.. if we find out we’re all wet and far too critical of the NREL, a place where we can go to make an apology….

But… here’s another video clip to watch

How many prototypes must we build to test them? Do we need to fund 35MWs worth of 7700s in order to test them? And if your answer is… the 7700s were well tested, then I ask by whom? and just where did that missing capacity go?  Ahh, you think I’m being too critical of Martha? That’s why the comment section is here.

If the technology is proven, and there’s a proven return on investment to be had, why do we need the DOE to fund it, and furthermore isn’t that beyond the scope of the NREL?  I think Martha shares the mission rather clearly… and funding technology ready for production doesn’t appear to be the goal…. does it?

5/26/12 added note: 

When trackers are stowed, there's little chance energy will be harvested.

When trackers are stowed, there's little chance energy will be harvested.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you look at the above Chart copied from EPE’s power production recorder for Hatch,   you can see that the wind is blowing in Hatch, and it looks as if the trackers were stowed in the 1300 hour of production, and near all of the 1400 hour of production, and we can see at near the end of the 1500 hour of production, very little was made.  I could have waited to see how the after noon shaped up, but there is little time to watch today, so I posted what I did see. Looking at the weather underground, I saw that some predicted winds of 20mph in Hatch, and others predicted 25MPH for today. I am told the 7700 trackers in Hatch ‘stow’ at 28mph, so it’s possible this location sees winds just a little higher than what/where the weather people sample/read the wind speeds. 

Hatch-Stowed-Tracker-5.27

Hatch-Stowed-Tracker-5.27

 Here’s the following day and we see that the power plant once again triggered on a wind event that caused the trackers to stow, we note that this is a peak production hour, and we see that it is highly likely that other wind events followed and really cut the heart out of the production day.

As I re-read the claims of high efficiency for the Amonix 7700, I recalled a post I saw made by another guy who had at least a question or two for the folks that hype this system. We do know that the lenses are round, and that there are 30 each per plate.. it’s easy enough to figure the square area of the box, and compare that to the total area of the 30 circles within that box which allows us to calculate the surface area that really doesn’tdo any work for us as per the conversion of Solar radiation into electrical energy. I do wonder how manyof these little things the NREL took into consideration before they decided to ‘promote’ this concentrator design, and it’s deployment in a place like Hatch?

Yes, I’m only curious, I’m not a professional designer by any means.. but i am startig to wonder how many professional were involved in tailoring the PV power plant to the Hatch Environment.

What efforts were made to use average wind speeds and predict these hours where the trackers are stowed at this location and remove them  from the expected total annual KWHs of production?  What wind data can we find to show the number of events with wind gusts high enough to stow the panels, and the number of events that might reset the counter to zero that would force the trackers to remain in  ‘stow’?  

These are all things that would make for a great conversation with the NREL Lab Rats..    Most of us assume that CPV is far more complex than making a good piece of silicon, I’m sure Martha knows that, and wouldn’t it be exciting to get her account of how Hatch is really performing in comparision to the expectations of the NREL?   

All the Best,

George B.

 

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, Generator Realities, Inspirational People, Strange Stuff, UtterPower Articles | Tagged , , , , | 53 Comments

Of Interest to the wood gas Community?

Posted on May 14, 2012 by George B.

Sure thing, we saw the NREL promoting Amonix, and CPV, but they seem all too unmotivated to visit Hatch and report on the 7700s and the Multi Junction Solar Cells they were so excited about… How are they holding up? Was the excitement all about hyping it,  or did they have real interest?  I stand here ready with an apology if you have any evidence I need give the NREL one..   

Here’s another article they’ve published, God only knows why they post the article, maybe it’s all about some big award they’re ready to give someone and then not follow up on it? 

http://www.nrel.gov/news/features/feature_detail.cfm/feature_id=1823

I did call a certain reporter at the  Las Vegas Sun and asked them why they had run so many stories about Amonix and their world Class product and now seem to have no interest in it since it became a reality? The field is full of them, and no interest whatsoever?  So if you think it looks like the Sun was involved in the hype, or were dupes.. do know I talked t a Sun Reporter last week.. and it was brought to their attention.

G 

Next Hype? We’ll see..  

 

 

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

DIYers love to study gear failures, and here is a great study!

Posted on May 12, 2012 by George B.

Background

Many of us have studied the Indian Clones, (Listeriods) and we know that almost all of the failures are related to poor workmanship. Most all failures can be traced to errors in cutting the gears, wrong materials used, inaccurate locations for the crankshaft, cam shaft, or idler gear, and more! We’ve all seen the newbies arrive to market their remedies, and two of the more memorable were a bloke from the UK who advertised that the gear he sold would fix it all! Then there was a certain Willem who didn’t understand the value of the bronze idler and condemned it! We know the bronze gear was an effort to mitigate a not so perfect set of conditions, and it did an impressive job in a lot of machines under study.

If there is an opposite to the Listeroid Clone gear failures, it might be the commercial wind turbine gear box. Those on the bleeding left edge of Alternative Energy were born with the knowledge that anything painted green is good, and if it’s not perfect a few trillion printed dollars will likely fix it.  We do know that dark hunter green is a most pleasant color, but beyond that, green is sold to us DIYers on merit alone.

Wind energy on the commercial scale is far different than the personal wind investment, DIYers strive to erect designs that survive in their environments, the commercial industry may benefit from building to the more impressive installed cost per KWH figures.

The facts of wind energy include wind events that arrive on occasion, and test some of the best designs of nature. If you’ve ever taken a drive along the west coast of Washington State, you can drive mile after mile through forests that lie flat to the ground! No doubt, these wind events don’t arrive often, but they only need arrive once to literally tear down a wind farm. 

We expect to see a man or a company offer up the simple solution, like monitor the weather and park the machines when it’s coming, but we learn from aviation that predicting the arrival of these anomalies is not so easy.  

NREL STUDY

As we read the study, we know the Authors might be most optimistic, as we grow older, we become more skeptical not because our brains become less elastic, it’s because we have seen so many men worship the source of their paychecks.

Wind power is a most difficult and expensive endeavor when you abandon the principles taught by folks like Hugh Piggot.  He and others are more focused on building low cost machines, that sacrifice efficiency and power production to assure the machine survives long enough to provide a return on investment.

It wasn’t long ago, I talked to a real Lube Engineer, he was sure that man had not yet designed a lube capable of addressing the needs of a current commercial wind machine gear box.

We need limit the speed of the blades, we need limit the torque through the box, it’s not so easy to design a system to save the gear box when the wind energy could easily overspeed the turbine and cause the total destruction of the machine.

In some machines the lube has reached temperatures high enough to gas off, at some point they permanently lose their engineered properties and they contribute to the destruction of the machine.

I reflect on Chrysler, they’ve put the Cummins in their 3/4 trucks for years, and never seemed to address the fact that the transmission was marginal for the job.  The engine develops a little more torque than the trans can handle, and it’s very normal to lose a transmission long before the engine needs replacement. Why is that? My answer.. the remedy is very costly.

In another post, I pass along the obvious, the Wind Energy Investors maybe minimizing their risks, by piling part of that risk on your back. But they assume that the power they produce will be given the highest priority in conduits they don’t own, and we’ll sit back and watch those who have all the answers attempt to give the highest priority in the grid to AE production. They’ll say “It’s all so simple really”, and of course we know that is was because they are so simple that they overlooked the problem in the first place.   

Shouldn’t those who grow our food have the same privileges? When their crop is ready, they call the FEDs, the trucks arrive, and haul their products to the market. But.. if the feds don’t arrive right on time, we’ll allow the farmer to sue the FED (that’s us tax payers). 

I got a call the other day from a Friend, he knows a group of people who have no jobs, they are very interested in getting into Windpower or Solar. I told him my research finds that many of the folks that have been selling services into this market find themselves un- employed. And that the majority of the work nowadays is done by limited skill construction workers, for solar..bolting together mounting racks, attaching panels, and simply plugging the connectors together. Travel is part of the job, and since there’s no rocket science involved, job security is not so great, it’s often easier to hire locals than to pay to keep you in a motel with a food allowance.

In wind energy, you need ask, where are these machines made? Where are the parts manufactured, and how many permanent jobs are there? One guy I know manages several huge cranes that are used in the installations, he has trained to know every part of the crane, the electronics, the assembly of the crane and take down, the certification of the procedures. He’s no wind energy specialist, but he may have the more reliable job BECAUSE he is not so easily replaced by a man off the street.

The free market was designed to sort all this out, but our youth mostly are so wise… they see the wisdom of handing the decisions to our elected officials who most often have the same mechanical aptitude as used car salesmen and occupy wall street attendees, and of course they often do for themselves first. 

As we study the efforts of the NREL, we note what looks like the blatant promotion of Amonix, a real Lab would be most anxious to follow the product and know how it’s working in the field. These Multi Junction Cells, highly efficient they say! And of course we DIYers are not so impressed with a Lab experiment, we want to know how that cell performed in the field, it’s what real Labs do I think.  So you disagree and i’ve got it wrong; that’s what the comments are for.  Just how long will the entire world ignore the results of the NREL and Amonix and the corn they planted in that field? Did it ever grow?  

GB

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Critical Thinking, DIYer Skills, Earth & Energy, In The News | 7 Comments

Could NextEra Sue the NREL?

Posted on May 9, 2012 by George B.

Amazing as it seems, some of those most angry about religion and faith-based movements seem to give their support for causes on faith alone, it seems such a contradiction, but apparently not for them. Among these people are many elected officials in my State of washington, they are cocksure that anything touted as green is good. In their world, very complex topics can be rendered simple within the hour.   

We might take a survey at the local Mall, and ask people about the DOE’s mission, why they were formed in the first place, and what their mission should be?

I’d expect about 45% of the people surveyed to say that the Government knows where best to spend our money, fact is, a portion of this group may not even understand it’s our money they spend.

But among the other 55%, how many will think to use real investments, and real relationships the DOE, (NREL) has forged to study the DOE’s effectiveness? How many would rise from their seats and condemn such an effort, and why?

We’ve all bought products that have fallen far short of the advertisements and marketing hype. Many of us expect our Government to produce more useful products, or perhaps better yet, to stay out of the role of making products for our consumption.

My opinion, NextEra bought a power plant Marketed by the NREL, as I said, they stopped just short of using dancing girls to help market the Amonix 7700 trackers according to my measure.

What we have now is a field  full of Amonix 7700 trackers that are actually on line, and in service! Yes, this is the NextEra power plant at Hatch, New Mexico.  No doubt in my mind that NextEra could have been influenced by the DOE’s strong endorsement of the product in their decision to invest.  

I couldn’t find any healthy skeptical comments at the DOE  about any phase of the Amonix 7700 production, use of materials, where they planned to deploy the technology, etc. Perhaps I missed something, let me know in comments if you will..

So.. how’s this power plant doing, and does anyone care?          

http://www.nrel.gov/news/features/feature_detail.cfm/feature_id=1491

With the strong endorsement the NREL gave the product, would we expect that they had reviewed the design, and felt reasonably assured the product would deliver a value to the customer close to the promises made by Amonix?

If the NREL hadn’t made this level of investment in studying the product, why would they endorse it? My thought today.. is no one will care, and how sad I think that is.  Will NextEra care if this power plant is found to provide far less value than advertised? Will they have any avenue to seek compensation?

GB

 

 

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Earth & Energy, Fighting Propaganda, Gravity, Strange Stuff, Things I Hate! | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Windpower Reality, Wind Farms Angry and now demanding more of the public

Posted on May 5, 2012 by George B.

Here’s a story worth reading, it will likely further divide our nation…

 

Lately though, electricity, not recreation, has become the big-ticket wind client in the Columbia Gorge. Wind turbines have sprung up all over the blustery hilltops in eastern Washington and Oregon, an area soon to become home to the largest wind farm in the world, developed for customers of Southern California Edison. Indeed, half the massive new wind power generated in the Pacific Northwest goes down the grid to California.

For the last three weeks, however, many of the wind farms have been ordered to shut down their generation for several hours a day — victims of an unusual surplus of hydroelectric power that has confounded regional electricity operators and infuriated renewable energy advocates who have worked so hard to develop the region’s wind bonanza.

The problem is an unexpected collision between two of the Northwest’s most treasured environmental assets, wind power and endangered salmon. Spring flows on the Columbia are so high that power system operators say they cannot dial back hydroelectric generators without harming the small juvenile fish now making their way down the river in their spring migration to the sea. With the turbines generating so much electricity, there is much less room on the grid for wind power.

“We’ve now got a situation where we’re protecting our customers and we’re protecting fish, but obviously the wind community is very upset about it,” said Elliot Mainzer, executive vice president for corporate strategy at the Bonneville Power Administration, the federal power marketing authority that operates the massive hydropower dams on the Columbia River.

Wind operators say the cutbacks are costing them millions of dollars in broken contracts and lost tax and energy credits. On Monday, five wind companies filed a claim with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, alleging that Bonneville is using its transmission market power to curtail competing generators and protect its own customers.

Some of the leading conservation groups working to restore salmon are suspicious of Bonneville’s motives.

“We think Bonneville is using salmon protection as an excuse for a policy they are implementing for other reasons, namely their desire to have hydroelectricity filling the transmission lines, more than wind energy,” said Pat Ford, executive director of the Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition.

Bonneville has historically been a major supplier of power across the Northwest and down to California. One of the reasons wind power has taken off in the region is the unique ability of BPA’s hydropower — which can be ramped up or scaled back as quickly as opening the spillways on the dams — to act as a balance to the highly unpredictable flows of wind power, dependent on weather, making sure a steady supply of power is flowing through the grid.

The power authority is now carrying 3,500 megawatts of wind-generated power through its transmission lines, more than half of it under contract to California utilities to comply with the state’s tough new alternative energy portfolio requirements. An additional 3,000 to 4,000 megawatts of wind energy capability is scheduled to be installed over the next decade.

Seems to me the answer is for California to shut down the energy companies, they’re out of compliance! So turn out the lights California!  

The wind farms have been given every kind of subsidy and tax break, and now they demand priority in a conduit they don’t own.

Imagine a tomato farmer building a huge farm with green houses and never questioning  the need to arrange a way to take his seasonal crop to the market place. Imagine him squealing like a thoughtless pig when the truck were not there to haul his crop.

there are a lot of technical people who question if the present crop of wind turbines will ever produce a return on investment to humanity, but that really isn’t even a consideration to the faith based movement that forces the tax payer to invest.

History will tell the story, and our grandchildren will ask… “What the hell were you all thinking?” Our Govenor hold services for the Wind faithful, it’s been worth so many unenformed votes for her party.

Here’s the story

Meanwhile, there’s been huge investments in Solar PV, have you EVER seen an audit of the claimed electrical generating capacity and the actuals? Of course not.. this is a faith based movement, there is no need to validate more than your forced contribution to the effort.  If subsidies are involved, the public should have access to the installed cost per KWH, and the Monthly production figures, they also need access to the efforts and expenses required when AE falls short of delivering on their contracts. If it’s all private investment, then who should care?

Point me to the hard data.. 

GB 

 

 

Posted in Alternative Energy Sources, Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, Fighting Propaganda, Gravity, In The News, Strange Stuff, The New Green Movement, Things I Hate! | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Amonix-7700

Posted on May 4, 2012 by George B.

Amonix 7700 CPV Power Plant at Hatch New Mexico *

Easter Island 7700

 

Power Companies are of great interest to me, for the most part, they attempt to take as much risk out of the future as possible by making the most prudent and responsible investments in energy production.  They do it on behalf of the most important group they know.. their Customers and Stake Holders.  It’s not always easy, as there are many entities demanding that they be part of the decision making, Investors, State and Federal entities, environmental groups and more.  

El Paso Electric is a Company I’d consider investing in, they have more than a pretty Website, the more layers I look at, the more substance I find, or at least that’s how I feel at the moment.  

EPE like many other Power Companies is forced to buy or produce a certain amount of renewable energy, it’s as simple as that, they don’t need waste time with the merits of renewable energy, it’s a necessity.  One of the agreements EPE has forged is with NextEra who owns the Five Mega Watt Power Plant in Hatch New Mexico.  EPE gets their fair share of calls about Solar Energy Power Production, and they decided to allow their Customers direct access to a meter that measures power production out of the Hatch Power Plant that is comprised of about 672,000 Multi Junction Solar Cells sitting on 84 Gigantic dual axis trackers.  Instead of taking the calls, why not put the information customers are looking for on line? What a great idea EPE!

http://www.epelectric.com/renewable-energy/NX01

Above is EPE’s link to provide this information, and apparently the meter and software is at NextEra’s site,  EPE has little control of how it tallies and reports at the moment, but there should be no reason why this power production couldn’t be put into a spread sheet where we can all watch this power plant and others. 

Just how is this Contract between NextEra and EPE written up? I don’t suggest I know the details, but we do know that EPE is required to produce a certain amount of renewable energy, and many like EPE choose to buy that energy from those who specialize in the business of renewable energy production, (Like NextEra)

Checking out NextEra’s online info, Solar Energy makes up the minor part of their investments at one percent or less of their holdings. Their largest holdings are in Wind Energy (52%) and they have hydro, and even an investment in Nuke power production.

 I did talk to a person in EPE who was able to share that there had been a few calls about the meter, and those curious as to why a power plant rated at 5WM wasn’t producing near that at this peak time of year.  (last half of May)

My own comparisons of other Solar PV power plants like Mono crystalline Flat Panels shows they are at their rated output, and in one case, the owner says his panels have an obvious yellow color due to a layer of pollen, and still they are making full rated output.

If we believe the power production figures, we might assume the plant is making about 70 percent of it’s Advertised rated capacity of 5040KW  and if this is because the equipment has degraded in the field, that’s a 30% loss over the first year.  Since we know that Amonix put into service one or more of the 7700 trackers to power their production facility in Las Vegas, we know their engineers had the opportunity to test the actual performance of the design, and adjust expectations and share same with the customers. I think it is reasonable to assume the difference in advertised output and what we see if is related to  problems that have developed in the tracker systems since they were installed.

People who are technically interested in this type of power plant have kicked around the probable causes, and I think we all believe the degraded performance is centered around the Multi Junction Cells, and their ability to stay cool enough to survive. It appears there are three states these Multi Junctions can be found in, performing well, in some state of failing, or totally burned up. There are other conditions we’d expect, and anytime we have trackers, it’s reasonable to expect failures here that further degrade capacity.

Sure thing, we’d have to know the exact cause of the failures to accurately (guess) at how this power plant might continue to perform. But I’m sure willing to take a stab at it, and I think you should too.  I see the Hatch environment far different than what Amonix and a few other so called Green Energy sites suggest it be, they ‘advertise’ it’s idea for CPV, I see it as a hostile environment ready to torture most any piece of equipment left outside.  High winds, blowing sand and dust, ice, boiling heat. Higher UV due to the elevation, and more.

I’m not sure how a tracker with this much ‘sail area’ survives in Hatch, and maybe they don’t? tricks t measure wind speed and park the trackers horizontal are not likely to protect from the wind gusts that destroy other equipment. Other components look to be equally challenged by the elements here. With all this considered, My guess is the power plant will degrade on pretty much a straight line on a graph and I would expect an additional  750 and 1500 KW to be lost in the next year without intensive maintenance and repair efforts. And there lies the big question, will it be economical to rehabilitate the power plant, and maintain it in order to meet the power production firgures promised by NextEra?

Here’s a page at the NREL worth studying:  http://www.nrel.gov/news/features/feature_detail.cfm/feature_id=1491

I guess what I find odd, it the NREL has not shared any interest in following up on >their< research and development of the Multi Junction Solar Cell.  For you ‘hands on folks’, whether you’re a Technician, experienced Mechanic, or Professional Engineer, Is it possible you could help to give birth to such a device and NOT follow the performance of your device into the field to see how it was performing?  No doubt, our community of ‘hands on types’ could add several pages of questions about the Multi Junction Solar Cells, how they were manufactured, what efforts were made to assure the thermal connections between the MJCs and their heat sinks were maintained, and more.

We see that the NREL shares information that an Employee of the NREL left to join Aminox, and work on the development of the 7700 Tracker system. We do find a lot of disclaimers on the NREL website, but if you spent all you time in an office, you might be convinced that the Amonix 7700 was going to be a trouble free, fully tested power plant. If you were paid to market the product, you’d likely consider the articles published by the NREL as a huge leg up in marketing. In my opinion, the vast majority of ALL the Articles I have read about the Amonix 7700s have a lot in common, it’s as if they were forged by one marketing firm, and spread across the Web.

What I find curious, is WEsites that attempt to pass themselves off as having some interest in covering the technical merits of the product, if you make any effort to read them, you are left to think that the same WEBsmiths that wrote the marketing hype created the Website!

One wordsmith ‘Chris Meehan’ writes an article here.

You can click to find out more about chris, but I think he’s far more likely to be a paid marketing type, and I’d bet he doesn’t make much time to ask questions about a technology.

We might note that the DOE is again making loan guarentees to Congentrix! And.. Congentrix owns the field full of Amonix 7700 trackers, a 30MW power plant, that’s six times as large as the Hatch power plant that we see performing far below expectations according to the power meter!

Isn’t it time to see if we can find anyone who really had a vested interest in making a quality product here? Will we find even one Professional Engineer who was responsible for quality control during the production of the 7700 trackers in Las vegas, We note that Flex Tronics is given credit for the assembly, why is that, and who assured the QC?

The more telling story may be who stands to lose money IF the Amonix 7700 under performs? How was the contract written up, and what amount of money was withheld in the payment from NextEra to Amonix? We might assume there was a performance clause in the contract, and that Amonix had to prove the performance of the Hatch power plant, before final payment was made, but is that information available to the public?

If the DOE is underwriting a loan with the tax payers money, shouldn’t we expect the details of the loan to be public, and did the DOE (NREL) take even the most basic precautions to assure this loan was going towards a proven product built under standard QC measures?

It does appear to be a fact that nearly all the Media outlets are fightign for their lives, they will quickly cover stories handed to them, but seldom is there anyone in there organizations that can do more than screw in a light bulb. They may be given technical stories to cover, but I find that most in the media normally have little interest in technology. The exception may be in the Automotive world, I find that those who are truly interested in Autos and gears have much higher expectations, and they will quickly feed author to the wolves if he attempt to pass off marketing hype as his own work. At this moment, I believe that those who believe by faith alone are soon outed in the Auto world, but it may be a fact that the majority who support the gifts that the DOE makes on our behalf have absolutely no interest in whether these loans are made based on merit.

I think the Las Vegas Sun stands as a testament to the Media and their lack of interest in stories that require any level of Critical Thinking. All those huge trackers that left Las Vegas, did they ever plant them in the field, and how are they doing? After all, the entire  world likely visited the Sun with the story of the plant closure, and not a single reporter thought it news worthy to follow up on the story?

Do your own searches on Amonix, and see if the coverage doesn’t look liek it was crafted by the same hand!

If the power plant at Hatch and Alamosa 35 Mega Watts doesn’t perform, who are the big losers? who made the money, and who is holding the bag?

It’s all too easy to visit the Las Vegas Sun and find the number to call    

http://www.lasvegassun.com/staff/

Now just imagine.. If the NREL had hyped the 7700 Amonix Car, if millions of dollars worth of finished cars had been delivered to customers, would they dare not at least ask.. “So… do those cars run?”

And now we end with some entertainment value.. Just WTF is real anymore?

http://blip.tv/starcrossedgirl/white-rabbit-musicvid-2319989

All the best, 

 GeorgeB  

 

 

 

 

Posted in Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, In The News, Strange Stuff, The New Green Movement | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Concentrated Photo Voltaic, a Primer for non-techie types that will get you up to speed fast!

Posted on April 30, 2012 by George B.

It’s May day, You have just hours before you go to Dinner with your Spouse and a leading expert in the Field of CPV, what will you read in order to at least act half way interested, and perhaps even engage him in a conversation about his technology and interests?  You know he has no interest in sports, or what hollywood does, it’s going to be a long and awkward evening less you take a few minutes to prepare.

I suggest you read along, it’s a short read, but it does require you look at a few webpages, but I promise it will be near painless.

If you are old enough, you’ll remember the round head lights we had in cars for so many years. The lights were called sealed beams and they concentrated the light from the element and focused it into a specified area. The sealed Beam head lights used in Autos are noteworthy because they worked so well AND they ‘concentrated’ light just like a CPV system does. 

I’m not sure when it was, but somewhere in the 80s, the Automotive Engineers had a better idea, maybe it was style driven, maybe some of the Engineers who were after superior aerodynamics liked them as well, but no matter how few or how many reasons, the newer units took over.  The glass enclosure now had an opening in the back, and there was a smaller light bulb that could be pulled out the back and replaced when it was bad.

It took only a bit of time for people to realize the downside of these new lighting units, a rock chip could and did break the seal of the enclosure, and when you pulled into your drive at night and turned off the key, the light would cool and often drew in moist air. The next morning when the air temp picked up a bit, the moisture inside the head light enclosure would condense and make a soup of sorts. This could lead to growing a culture of algae like green, red, and might even help remove that few microns thick of shiny stuff on the back called a reflector.

Soon, a lot of folks were driving down the road thinking they’re going blind, some checked in with their car mechanics and found that the lighting enclosure had been compromised and needed to be replaced because it no longer concentrated enough light for one to safely see at night  The Owner often said OK, replace them, call me when you’re done.

This lead to owners going into shock when they were presented with a $300 plus bill (in the 80s remember). The  new enclosures were $120 and up each, and that didn’t include installation, or the new light bulb. They were expensive for a reason, part of it was they were sealed from the elements that can and do destroy or rapidly degrade the reflective elements that concentrate the light.

This caused a lot of people to think about what they had lost with the old system, as it was just a few dollars for the entire unit, and they were quick and easy to replace.  The first aftermarket plastic covers came out to snap over the head lights to save you from rock chips that were VERY common. The plastic got dirty, the sand and grit wore the surface and cut the light transmission, they aged in the Sunlight and turned yellow too.  Soon, people couldn’t see again, and thought they were going blind.

There was another problem, after some years, the plastic holder for the light bulb wore, and so did the O ring, when it started to leak, you could bring in the moist air, and foul or lose your internal reflector coating by growing a culture inside. I personally know people who do not drive at night anymore than they have too, it scares them, and they think it’s their failing vision, hard to convince them their concentrating system has degraded to the point of being dangerous.   

All of this is a lesson that it takes a while for a concentrating light unit like I describe to show us both the advantages and disadvantages, and there is no doubt in my mind that this new system added to the cost of car ownership.

The discussion of concentrating light beams is about lenses, mirrors, and little more, it can work well WHEN the environment is sealed and moisture, dust and dirt have no chance to get in. Of course what one man calls sealed, another won’t and the discussion can get down to “sealed for how long?” then, we get into the lens material, there’s glass, and many types of plastic, some plastics are wonders, and they stay fairly clear for years, and the biggest problem comes when they aren’t cleaned with the utmost care. If they’re loaded up with sandy grit and you attempt to rub them clean with a dry rag, it can turn ugly. Not only have you scratched the surface, but you may have made it toothy to the point where bacteria can set up housekeeping and further impede light transmission. Glass sounds like a great choice, but what about 50 MPH winds and dust storms?

In concentrated PV, we have the same issues as we do with a common auto head light, only we multiply any problem with degradation of the light transmission path 10,000 times or more from a maintenance point of view.

In concentrated PV, we have the same issue with pointing  the CPV panel at our light source, it’s reverse of pointing our light source in the direction of travel, but very similar. In the car, we turn the steering wheel, in CPV, we have electronics that know where the sun is, and make use of gears, hydraulics, servos, or a number of other parts to make sure the sun is aligned accurately with the lens, and concentration elements, when this doesn’t happen, no electricity is made.

There’s other automotive data you might consider. People here in Washington State who commute daily over our mountain passes are normally forced to replace their windshields annually. This is because they can become so sandblasted that they are literally dangerous. What is it like in areas where CPV is deployed? Wind speeds, driven sand and dust?

This is all about light being able to get through a lens, or a clear cover, and how reflectors degrade, in autos, they degraded far more rapidly than some thought. How will the Concentrator elements in the CPV systems perform, and what problems might already be showing up in Hatch for instance Does anybody care to know?

Now it’s time for you to do a few web searches, it’s all so easy, and we’ll assume you use google since most do.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_photovoltaics

Now that you have a little back ground, just hold the analogy of a rifle scope, all is well when you have the scope on the cross hairs, all is in focus, lenses are clean, and the solar cell is working of course.

If you do a few more google searches, there’s little chance you won’t run across this site  http://amonix.com/content/solar-pioneers

Why not use the touted leader for our study? We form the questions you’ll entertain your expert with. We know we don’t have the answers, but decent questions will allow us to express some interest in the topic.   

Potential questions follow:

Hey, I ‘ve seen the Las Vegas Sun has been covering Amonix all along, and isn’t it great we have those huge deployments in Alamosa Colorado and Hatch New Mexico! What I’m curious about is why they all of a sudden dropped the Coverage of Amonix just when they have something to show off?

I hear the wind blows pretty hard in Hatch New Mexico, and the air is so full of sand, dirt, and grit, this ought to be a great place to prove how well the product is doing, how do we find out? Are these solar modules holding up well, how many have they had to replace?  Any wind damage? I’ll bet the whole CPV community is discussing this somewhere, where do we find the conversation?

Hey, when is the factory in Las Vegas going to roll out the next batch of product? I see the Los Vegas Sun hasn’t said a word about Amonix since they announced all the job layoffs there, what’s up with that?

Amonix, the leader in CPV, and with enough trackers in the field to prove just how good they are. This is a fact as far as I can access.

Let’s look over this claim:

http://amonix.com/content/no-water-operation

No water used for cooling, impressive savings? Do we really save a valuable resource?

More questions for our Professionals, and maybe we go right back to the Automotive World and look for analogies?  CPV is a power plant, so are air cooled engines and water cooled engines, have you ever seen an air cooled engine maker advertise that they are saving a valuable resource by avoiding the use of a water cooled engine?

I think the average man or woman notices there’s no garden hose hooked to the car, and perhaps there’s very little water in the cooling loop, and not so much of a loss, it does beg thinking people to ask, just what group of people was this page designed for? It’s not an answer, just another question for our professional.

Of course this leads to more questions, and that is, we know that near all of the automotive industry has adopted the water cooled engine, and now we see that the majority of motorcycles have gone that way. The whole point is to carry off waste heat, and allow the machine to operate at a more ideal temperature. We learn from the WIKI page that heat is a problem with efficiency, and by cooling the CPV modules we can increase efficiency.

This leads to another question we ask our professional. Isn’t the whole idea of a CPV system that it is more efficient? If this is true why is the problem in the CPV different than in the automotive engines, and why have the Automotive engineers who have been dealing with the problems of carrying off excess heat to assure both efficiency and longevity of their equipment finding water or liquid cooling the more ideal answer?

Isn’t the problem exactly the same? Shouldn’t the CPV engineers recognize the automotive Engineers have about 130 years of experience in optimizing their cooling systems, AND have given up on what Amonix has deployed in their current tracker?

I remember sitting in a 1976 Fiat, and I noticed they had used some optical fibers to actually report on whether the head lights were on, innovative I thought, a different approach, but who could argue the stake holder (the one behind the wheel) could tell both lights were working.

This creates more questions for us:

How automated is the leader in the field? How do you know if a module has over heated and burned out, or is not performing as we expect? Is there any remote way of telling if a cell is bad, and how much effort does it take to get to the cell and replace it?

Do we break any seals getting  in and out to replace it? Do we need wait till the blowing dust and dirt stops to do it?

Where is the group of people who care what the actual performance of these panels are? If the US Government has given any incentives at all to Amonix or those who bought and deployed the product, should we Citizens enjoy the privilege of learning how they are working in the field?

Why is it that EVERY Green Energy Site I can find looks more like a place to market Green Energy, and not to discuss the technical merits of the product?

I’m sure the DOE has the results of this deployment at Hatch for instance. do we have any right to know?

added 5/8/2012: I see the NREL has posted comments on Amonix, here’s an example:

Cost savings were factored in every step of the way — from foundry to grid — said Bob McConnell, who worked at NREL before he left the lab in 2007 to join Amonix and help bring the research to market.

The result is a generator manufactured at about a third to one half of generators using crystalline silicon or thin-film approaches.

Multi-junction cells can operate at higher ambient temperatures than traditional PV cells, making them ideal for sunny and dry climates in the southwestern United States, and ripe for future cost reductions.

The concentrator also is kinder to the environment than most large systems, using no water in its operation. Propped up two feet above the land, it doesn’t hinder the movement of wildlife.

“You simply can’t put enough solar systems on rooftops to achieve the scale and capacity necessary to generate electricity in the quantities required by utilities and by society,” said Amonix’s founder and chief technical officer, Vahan Garboushian. “This is a technology that can meet the terawatt (trillions of watts) needs of the world for clean electricity.”

As we attempt to digest what the NREL writes here, does it seem the relationship is a little like a marriage between first cousins? I mean the mention of the water savings again.. just how much water do you save in a closed loop glycol system? And don’t we know there would be a lot of consideration to using a lifetime waterless coolant as well. Some who read this will see it more as an advertisement. I think it might cause some of us to question the NREL’s mission.. but hey, I only have the questions here.. not the answers..    

G

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Buyer Beware, Critical Thinking, Earth & Energy, In The News, Questions & Answers, The New Green Movement | Tagged , , , , , | 17 Comments