SOLAR ENERGY | Forum

My guesstimate of electricity output from 300,000gal/ay via DuckweedUSA system, powering a 400kW diesel generator 24/7, comes to about 3.5GWh per acre per year. Times 2.8 and it is about 10GWh/yr. TEN TIMES what you get from solar cells!!! (Someone please verify this!)

==article==
It Takes 2.8 Acres of Land to Generate 1GWh of Solar Energy Per Year, Says NREL 
August 1, 2013 By Linda Hardesty 
 
The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has published a report on the land use requirements of solar power plants based on actual land-use practices from existing solar facilities.

The report, Land-use Requirements for Solar Power Plants in the United States, shows results from data gathered from 72 percent of the solar power plants installed or under construction in the United States. Among the findings:

• A large fixed tilt photovoltaic plant that generates 1 GWh per year requires, on average, 2.8 acres for the solar panels. This means that a solar power plant that provides all of the electricity for 1,000 homes would require 32 acres of land.
• Small single-axis PV systems require on average 2.9 acres per annual GWh – or 3.8 acres when considering all unused area that falls inside the project boundary.
• Concentrating solar power plants require on average 2.7 acres for solar collectors and other equipment per annual GWh; 3.5 acres for all land enclosed within the project boundary.

By the third quarter of 2012, the United States had deployed more than 2.1 GW of utility-scale solar generation capacity. Another 4.6 GW was under construction.

The report authors found that many of the solar land-use ranges and estimates used in anecdotal literature are very close to actual solar land use requirements. These land-use estimates can also be compared with other energy-production land uses. For example, a study by Vasilis Fthenakis and Hung Chul Kim of Columbia University (2009) found that, on a life-cycle electricity-output basis – including direct and indirect land transformation – utility-scale PV in the Southwest requires less land than the average US power plant using surface-mined coal....

more:
http://www.energymanagertoday.com/it-takes-2-8-acres-of-land-to-generate-1gwh-of-solar-energy-per-year-says-nrel-094185/

Official specs from PS10 in Spain.

Status Date: July 1, 2015
Background Technology: Power tower
Status: Operational
Country: Spain City: Sevilla Region: Sanlúcar la Mayor
Lat/Long Location: 37°26′ 30.97″ North, 6°14′ 59.98″ West
Land Area: 55 hectares
Solar Resource: 2,012 kWh/m2/yr
Source of Solar Resource: Abengoa Solar
Electricity Generation: 23,400 MWh/yr (Expected/Planned)
Generation Data Explanation: Gross generation
Contact(s): Luis Rejano Company: Abengoa Solar
Key References: Web site
Break Ground: 2005
Start Production: June 25, 2007 PPA/Tariff Date: January 17, 2005
PPA/Tariff Type: Royal Decree 661/2007
PPA/Tariff Rate: 27.1188 Euro cents per kWh PPA/Tariff Period: 25 years
PPA/Tariff Information: Total Price = Pool + Tariff Rate
Project Type: Commercial plant
Incentives: 1.2 million Euros from Andalusian Regional Government
5.0 million Euros from European Commission under FP5

source

note: 55 hectres = 136 acres*

Algae farms, while cleaning up things like factory farm effluent, don't cause problems like this:



"A Bay Area company is being urged to make changes to its state-of-the-art solar plant since thousands of birds have been burned to death by its panels. Ben Tracy reports."

Thermal solar can be scaled down to village size! With a lot less fried birds!