
Morocco to switch on first phase of world's largest solar plant - jaoued
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/04/morocco-to-switch-on-first-phase-of-worlds-largest-solar-plant
======
strommen
$9B for a 580MW plant is _expensive_. For reference, most photovoltaic plants
cost less than $3/W. Of course, PV stops working as soon as the sun goes down.

I'm curious how much additional capacity this thing gets by using solar heat
instead.

~~~
0xffff2
Well, the article says it will provide power for 3 hours after sunset.
Assuming 12 hours of useful sunlight per day, it seems safe to guess that it
provides something on the order of 25% more power.

~~~
lxmorj
Wouldn't it likely take three hours to start after sunrise then?

~~~
reportingsjr
No, because you can immediately start creating power when the sun comes up and
slowly store heat over the course of the day.

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waiseristy
This whole project just seems so insane to me. A medium sized damn in my area
was built for a bit less than $10 million back in the 50's and has a capacity
hitting around 1,000 Mw.

Obviously dams are highly location dependent, and are somewhat on the shadier
side of environmental impact. But 900 times the cost for half the power output
is just crazy. Is there really no better way to get power into the country? Or
is this just some publicity / money burning stunt?

~~~
ethagknight
Dams are dependent on a large volume of water flowing over a large drop to
spin turbines. Looking at the aerial in the article, it's safe to assume that
the water in the dam is a precious strategic resource and cannot be sent
downstream in sufficient volume to provide infrastructure scale power.

~~~
waiseristy
I'm not trying to imply that Morocco's money would be better spent on dams, as
Morocco is not in a location suitable for dams. I'm merely drawing attention
to the fact that they intend to invest in a facility that will cost 1800x more
per Kw than another common source of energy. Perhaps a better comparison would
be pure solar, or off shore wind. Though I'm still confident those options
would still be _vastly_ cheaper than their current plan

~~~
eru
Or alternatively, put the money in some investment vehicle, and buy energy
(electricity / oil) via long running contracts from the returns.

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dools
This is a great project, the only thing that concerns me about it is the very
large loan from the IMF denominated in USD they took out in order to build it.
Could well have been the work of EHMs

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-
Perkins/...](http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-
Perkins/dp/0452287081)

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Could you refer me to the IMF loan, I can't find it?

I do know Morocco took our a precautionary loan, iirc with the IMF, in the
past few years which was renewed not so long ago. But it was renewed because
it was not exercised, it's more of a free loan option they had secured to
protect against the very swings in fossil fuel prices that a project like this
diminishes due to increased energy independence. Perhaps that's the loan
you're referring to? In that case, note that Morocco didn't actually lend the
money, it only secured the option to borrow in case shit hits the fan. (oil
goes to $100, which is a disaster for Morocco, but no sign of that anytime
soon).

~~~
dools
The article I read that in originally references a mixture of private and "IFI
funding"[1] which I took to mean International Financial Institutions (which
includes IMF/WorldBank etc. who make loans denominated in USD)[2].

The book I referenced above is by John Perkins who worked as a consultant for
a company who would justify huge loans denominated in USD for power
infrastructure to developing nations, but a significant majority of the work
and materials would come from US companies. So the World Bank or the IMF would
loan tonnes of money to someone in USD, much of it being transferred directly
to companies in the US anyway, and leaving the nation with a large debt to
service in a currency they do not issue (leaving them vulnerable to pressure
from the US to export goods, for example, even though people require them
locally, to liberalised trade agreements, or even to be allies in conflict
etc. all sorts of sordid shit; the John Perkins stuff is well worth reading).

When governments take on large debts denominated in a currency they do not
issue, it's always a cause for concern. That's why MMT academics were against
the Euro[3], and why so many developing nations are now locked into crippling
debt service that they cannot possibly keep up with.

Countries like the US, UK, Australia and Japan who only issue debt (ie. all
currency or treasury securities) denominated in their own currency, have no
risk of insolvency and no trouble servicing the debt[4] -- they can choose to
stop paying interest any time they want and indeed the "debt" people refer to
in those economies is really a "buffer stock" rather than a "bond market"[5]

When a nation that does not issue USD (ie. any nation other than the US) takes
on USD denominated debt, with interest payments denominated in USD, they're up
shit creek without a paddle.

[1] [http://www.worldfinance.com/infrastructure-
investment/projec...](http://www.worldfinance.com/infrastructure-
investment/project-finance/moatize-ipp-noor-1-csp)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_financial_instit...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_financial_institutions)

[3] [http://www.amazon.com/Eurozone-Dystopia-Groupthink-Denial-
Gr...](http://www.amazon.com/Eurozone-Dystopia-Groupthink-Denial-
Grand/dp/1784716650)

[4]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i35uBVeNp6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i35uBVeNp6c)

[5]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVyyyXrcwo&index=6&list=PLo...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soVyyyXrcwo&index=6&list=PLoGqI16J4bCtzP8aN3sQcZd8xcGrkXmHA)

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Ah I see, no I wouldn't mean to take it as the IMF although they may have been
part of the loan. A big chunk of the money is from climate investment funds
(CIFs), which come from IFIs, of which in particular the regional IFI, the
African Development Bank, in addition to private loans from Saudi Arabia and
Germany. In fact it's co-owned by some of those companies, e.g. the saudi ACWA
Power, the Spanish TSK etc.

Anyway, it doesn't matter as indeed all of those could be dollar denominated.
I don't know if they are. It's extremely common for, particularly in
english/international reporting, numbers to be reported in dollar equivalents.
Whether that's the actual denomination of the loan I don't know. I do know
Morocco struggles deeply with hard currency scarcity, particularly in the
realm of necessary energy imports every year, so they're well aware of the
issues surrounding obligations in foreign currency denominations. There's a
lot of fluff pieces on this project but sadly little deep insight in how it's
all structured.

Thanks for the book reference. I'd not read it but I've been introduced to the
issue in college classes many times, it features heavily in international
political economy classes for example of which I took a few. I hope to find
some time this semester to look into all the resources you linked me, thanks
for that!

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xyzzy4
The market cap of all the solar stocks in the industry ($14 billion or so) is
about the same as the market cap of Twitter. Pretty baffling to me.

If you're a billionaire and want to be a trillionaire, all you'd have to do is
buy every solar company and wait a few decades I bet.

~~~
cjensen
There's no barrier to entry on anything solar-related. A wise investor would
assume that serious competition will occur prior to reaching a trillion-dollar
jackpot.

~~~
xyzzy4
You could buy every solar startup as soon as they get to X size. Also hardware
startups do have significant barriers of entry.

~~~
rhino369
Then you'd get stuck buying half assed divisions of a bunch of F500 companies
who get into the market just to profit off you.

Plus you'd need unlimited capital for this plan. And current solar companies
might go bankrupt before solar hits the scale needed to compete with fossil
fuels.

And the DOJ would sue you for antitrust violations. Standard Oil did your
plan. That sort of thing won't be allowed again.

~~~
xyzzy4
Many solar companies are international.

They have highly optimized technology for reducing $/watt that can't be half-
assed by Fortune 500 companies.

Customer acquisition takes a while.

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0xffff2
I'm surprised to see that this project uses wet cooling. Wikipedia claims it
uses at least twice as much water as a coal power plant of similar capacity.

Is water surprisingly abundant in this part of the Sahara?

~~~
groby_b
Next to a sizeable lake:
[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ouarzazate+45000,+Morocco/...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ouarzazate+45000,+Morocco/@30.9189624,-6.9769893,12.89z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0xdbb104077422057:0x26b3cb529b37ab00)

Out of curiosity - what are the options outside of wet cooling?

~~~
_-__---
also, what can be done with the hot water coming out of the system?

~~~
semi-extrinsic
By definition this is low grade heat. In cold climates that can be used for
stuff like heating nearby homes. In hot climates you're basically limited to
running it through a bottoming cycle [1].

But that needs a delta T between the hot water coming out of your cooling
system and ambient temperature of probably about 40 K, which probably requires
a bigger cooling system than otherwise. So you have the added investment cost
of a bigger cooling system plus the bottoming cycle, but you've gained some
more energy output. Is it worth it? Impossible to say without crunching the
specific numbers. But my first guess is "no" in this case. It is usually worth
it for gas fired powerplants though.

[1] Covered in
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle)

~~~
david-given
If your ambient temperature is 40 K, I submit that you are not human and are,
in fact, living on Pluto.

Did you mean Fahrenheit?

~~~
Blaque
He's talking about a difference of 40K between the hot water out of the
cooling and the ambient temperature.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
Yes, exactly. Thanks for clarifying for me.

~~~
david-given
Oh, I see! I hadn't twigged.

...shame; living on Pluto would be cool.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
TIL: "twigged".

And yeah, living on Pluto would no doubt be... cool. _puts on sunglasses_

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diffraction
If they only switch in one phase won't that cause imbalances on their power
grid? Hyuk.

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woodandsteel
It occurs to me that the Middle East is very well endowed with both petroleum
and sunshine, but the latter is far more evenly distributed.

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dharma1
a bit OT, but I have about 70m2 south facing roof space (UK) where I'd like to
install solar panels at some point. How are panel prices likely to develop
over the next 5 years? Should I wait, will panels become ridiculously cheap in
the near future?

~~~
blacksmith_tb
I can't speak to the UK specifically, but I have 4.8kW system on my south-
facing roof in similarly-cloud Oregon. Panels will continue to get cheaper,
but likely the largest part of the cost will be the installation, and that is
not likely to become cheaper nearly as soon (though it should gradually, as
it's more and more common).

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sandworm101
There is a rule for calling yourself the "tallest building" that is relevant
here. You aren't the tallest building until you have topped out. Before that,
you are just a construction site. This is important because it means you
cannot be "tallest" while still under construction. The title belongs to the
tallest current building until such time as you stop building.

This "worlds biggest" solar plant therefore isn't. It isn't yet biggest. It
may never be biggest. It may be passed over by some other plant started
tomorrow. Or it could stop expanding before ever reaching its designed size.

