Genesis Solar Switches to Dry-Cooling for Sonora Solar Thermal Plant
Tuesday, July 13th 2010 1:00 PM
By GetSolar Staff.
Genesis Solar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources (NEE), will change the cooling system for its proposed solar thermal plant in the Sonora Desert of California. Instead of a water-cooled system, the Sonora plant will employ dry cooling, in which fans blow air over a radiator system, which condenses steam into water and recycles it back into the power generation loop.
"The Genesis Solar Project will create jobs and strengthen our country's energy security without producing harmful emissions," said NextEnergy CEO and president Mitch Davidson, "With today's announcement, we are taking additional steps to minimize the impact on California's water resources."
California suffers from chronic water shortages, and the original plan for the Genesis Solar Project generated some controversy from local residents and farmers. The company says that a traditional wet-cooled solar thermal installation would use much less water than an agricultural operation, but also cited an eightfold decrease in the station's usage from 1,600 acre-feet to 200 acre-feet of water annually.
If approved, the Genesis Solar Project will require two units, generating a total 560 gigawatt-hours of clean electricity per year, enough to power 80,000 homes. With dry cooling in place, the water consumption of the plants will equal that of only 525 homes.
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Genesis Solar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources (NEE), will change the cooling system for its proposed solar thermal plant in the Sonora Desert of California. Instead of a water-cooled system, the Sonora plant will employ dry cooling, in which fans blow air over a radiator system, which condenses steam into water and recycles it back into the power generation loop.
