Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 1 HONR 229L: Climate Change: Science, Economics, and Governance Concentrated Solar Your name here 21 October 2015

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 2 I’d suggest first going through the Admission Ticket questions, which you can start by posing the first as a question to the class: Describe in a few sentences the difference in operating principle between solar photovoltaics and solar thermal. You can ask the class to answer, then provide an answer in your own words. On the next page, I include a scan of the image from the book (sorry but the Google Play version of the book lacked images, hence I had to scan). You can use the scanned image, or something from this fascinating webpage: concentration-CSP# concentration-CSP# or anything else to address this question.

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 3 Here is the scan:

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 4 The second AT question: The KH book notes “a key advantage of solar thermal over solar PV”. What is this key advantage and how, possibly, might this key advantage play a role in overcoming a major shortcoming of renewable energy? Can provide fruitful ground for discussion, especially given your physics background. I assume you’ll understand what shortcoming I am asking about … if not shoot me an and I’ll let you know. Can pull some nice info about this off of concentration-CSP# (espec some nice images) or other places off the web. concentration-CSP#

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 5 Might want to head next to the fourth & fifth AT question and lead a discussion about the “mission goal” of the three companies, and also describe perhaps the other company, Himin Solar Energy Group. I think you “know the drill” Great if you can go by the companies one by one, ask the students for their input first, then walk them through your take on each company (their mission, followed by their outcome). This can take up a fair amount of time. Here are some possible websites of interest: Solar-Effort (please note this is an old website) corruption.html

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 6 This is a series of questions that was almost used as an AT … but got left on the cutting room floor. Would be most excellent if you could discuss. Here goes: In the KH book states that between 1984 and 1990, Luz built nine solar thermal plants in California’s Mojave Desert, with a total capacity of 354 megawatts. Luz declared bankruptcy in The collection of nine solar thermal plants, known as Kramer Junction, continues to operate today a) What does capacity factor mean? b) What value for capacity factor of solar thermal is given in the KH reading? (I’ll be impressed if anyone can pull out this number, but if they can, most excellent. I’ve continually been impressed!) c) I was going to ask “What value for capacity factor of Kramer Junction is given on the above website?” but for class on Mon, you can review this. In the next slide I’ll give you a nice screen capture of the site). d) I was also going to ask “What is the cents per kilowatt hour operating cost of the Kramer Junction plant that was built in 2002, taking into consideration the costs for operation, maintenance, investment interest and depreciation?”. But again, you can state. I’ll also provide relevant screen capture. e) Please then ask the class “If the capacity factor of Kramer Junction was actual the value given in the KH reading, rather than the value given on the above website, what would the cents per kilowatt hour operating cost of Kramer Junction be? (hopefully someone in the class can to the math in real time … you can of course have the answer in a new slide. Also, I will provide a slide of cents per kilowatt hour sale price of electricity in Calif, which you can tie into this discussion)

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 7 Here is screen capture of

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 8 Here is another screen capture of

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 9 Here is the retail price of electricity slide:

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 10 OK, now comes the disheartening news. Want to save this for last. I had provided Emelia with this chart, showing worldwide PV growth, in Giga-Watt capacity, for the years since the book by KH. You are welcome to repeat (i.e., show again). If so, you should ask the students how does the world GW capacity of solar thermal compare?

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 11 These screen captures are from which had been assigned to the class. If you sum the numbers in the table, you get 3424 MW which equals … drum roll please … well you can do the math and convert to GW. Like I said, it is disheartening. I think it is worthwhile to go through this exercise so that folks can understand how to work with numbers (or be exposed to this!)

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 12 Perfect segue into why CSP (concentrated solar power) has lagged solar PV. Can work in AT Q 6: The KH books quotes John O’ Donnell as stating financing is ‘the last big obstacle to large-scale renewable energy deployment”. The book then goes on to name three additional obstacles. a) What are these three additional obstacles? b) Based either on the class readings, your intuition, or your own (brief) independent research, which of these three obstacles do you think is truly the hardest to overcome and how do you think it could possibly by overcome? which almost certainly has to be a factor, as well as Q3: a) What is a “renewable portfolio standard” (appears in KH, Chapter 3) and what is a “feed-in tariff” (KH, Chapter 2)? b) According to what country presently is the world leader in electricity generation from solar thermal? c) Which of the two policy options mentioned in a) did this country employ to facilitate the growth of solar thermal? And is this policy still in place? Of course the country for b) is Spain … you are welcome to “go to town” with description of their way cool system (easy to find images on the web)

Copyright © 2015 University of Maryland. This material may not be reproduced or redistributed, in whole or in part, without written permission from Ross Salawitch. 13 This should facilitate a 45 min (or so) discussion. Feel free to use whatever you’d like of what I have provided. If you will diverge wildly, please let me know as I plan to follow up your presentation with my own take on the economics of both CSP and solar PV. Of course, fine to grab whatever additional figures you’d like off the web, highlight whatever aspects of KH reading or wiki you’d like, etc. Good luck: and I’ll be happy to preview a draft !