The facility, though cost effective at the time it was planned (2009), is now twice as expensive to run as solar photovoltaic technology, which has decreased in price much more rapidly than was expected in the 15 years since Ivanpah’s construction began.
Thermal concentrator cost is basically fixed: mirrors of a specific quality, tracking mounts, an eye of sauron cooling loop. That tech doesn’t change much. Same with parabolic pipe plants.
But the bulk of photovoltaic installation cost is the panels. And those get exponentially cheaper.
Didn’t this exact plant go bankrupt due to solar panels being so much more efficient?
If you mean the Vegas one, then yes it’s closing, don’t know if it’s gone bankrupt exactly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility
There are hundreds of these.
It would make sense.
Thermal concentrator cost is basically fixed: mirrors of a specific quality, tracking mounts, an eye of sauron cooling loop. That tech doesn’t change much. Same with parabolic pipe plants.
But the bulk of photovoltaic installation cost is the panels. And those get exponentially cheaper.
They’ve gotten cheap, in fact, that the panels are sometimes less expensive than the labor and mounting hardware.
Yeah.
At some point, mounting them statically becomes even cheaper than a tracking mount, I guess.