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Both are hoping to increase percent of renewable energy-powered homes

Taiwan and the Czech Republic are taking huge strides in the “green” world by building large-scale solar power plants in Tainan, Taiwan and the South Moravian farming village of Moravsky Zizkov in an effort to reduce CO2 emissions. 

Taiwan Power Co., a state-run power company, is building a 5-megawatt solar plant to both decrease carbon emissions and reduce their dependence on imported energy needs, which is currently at 99 percent. 

Lawmakers in Taiwan approved the Renewable Energy Development Act in June 2009. Since that time, Taiwan Power Co. has been building solar stations and wind turbines in order to reach the goal of having renewable energy account for 15 percent of the island's electricity capacity by 2025. As of April of this year, Taiwan has reached 5.7 percent of this goal. 

No costs or figures for the solar plant are available yet, but according to Tu Yueh-yuan, a chief engineer of Taiwan's biggest electricity producer, the budget will not be a problem. 

While Taiwan's largest solar plant is in the making, the Czech Republic already has a solar station covering an area of more than 28,000 m and delivering an output of 1.2-megawatts that was completed in December of last year.

Kyocera, a company with 35 years of experience in solar industry, has supplied 8,960 solar modules for the power plant. The plant can supply energy for 280 households per year from sunlight, which reduces 1,150 tons of carbon emissions. 

This region of the Czech Republic receives many hours of sunlight, hence, a high annual electricity yield of 1.3 million kilowatt hours is expected from this solar station. While Nelumbo is one of the most experienced companies in solar thermal power in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, they handed the production of this solar plant over to Kyocera because of their high performance installation and quality modules.

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Waste off money.
By SunLord on 5/27/2010 11:38:37 AM , Rating: 4
Just following Spain down the green money drain




RE: Waste off money.
By Spivonious on 5/27/2010 11:44:12 AM , Rating: 3
Exactly. Doesn't it rain a lot in CR?


RE: Waste off money.
By polybios on 5/27/2010 4:33:51 PM , Rating: 2
In fact, solar plant is quite good investment here in Czech Rep. The reason is simple - government guarantees for TWENTY years very high buy out price of generated power. Obviously, taxpayers will pay it...


RE: Waste off money.
By inigoml on 5/28/2010 1:48:09 AM , Rating: 3
Economic problems in Spain are not due to Solar Power... your argument totally wrong.

Photovoltaic and thermosolar cover about 2% demand.
Wind power is the main renewable source of engergy here in Spain, and is not as subsidized as solar power. If fact, subsides for wind power have almost dissapeared.

We have no oil, we have no gaz, we have no possibility to increase our hydro power (and Spain is not precisely a country with a lot of rain but in the North). We have nuke plants frozen ("moratoria nuclear"). But we have plenty sun and a lot of wind.


RE: Waste off money.
By Brandon Hill (blog) on 5/27/2010 11:44:54 AM , Rating: 2
Maybe Greece should build one ;-)


RE: Waste off money.
By Pirks on 5/27/2010 11:56:06 AM , Rating: 4
LOL, what an idiots, they could have build just one nuclear plant and forget about electricity shortages forever. Stupid green dildos.


RE: Waste off money.
By chrnochime on 5/27/10, Rating: -1
RE: Waste off money.
By gamerk2 on 5/27/10, Rating: -1
RE: Waste off money.
By Steve1981 on 5/27/2010 2:30:48 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
People seem to think that Uranium/Plutonium grow on trees


Obviously you've never heard of the nuclear power plant!?!?!?

quote:
The primary miners of the stuff is in Nigeria, only slightly more stable then the middle east.


No, they're not. Kazakhstan, Canada, and Australia are the top three.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf23.html


RE: Waste off money.
By mino on 5/31/2010 11:46:59 AM , Rating: 2
And You forgot to mention that 50+% of soviet nuclear arsenal was from uranium from Czech mines.
A major reason for Brezhnev to invade them in 1968...

Hell, had the Czechs decided to renew the uranium mines, they will have enough Uranium for the whole of EU for decades.

Just not sure they have enough political prisoners to dig it out :)


RE: Waste off money.
By Keeir on 5/27/2010 2:41:16 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
People seem to think that Uranium/Plutonium grow on trees; The primary miners of the stuff is in Nigeria, only slightly more stable then the middle east.


You know why Nigeria is the primary miner? Low cost primarily.

http://www.euronuclear.org/info/encyclopedia/u/ura...

Top 5 countries for known reserves
Australia
Kazakhstan
United States
Canada
South Africa

Yep, thats a fearsome list right there.

quote:
Nevermind the waste issues


Waste Issues? Guess what, there is little to no real waste issue. France, a country 65 million produces 80% of its power from Nuclear... Somehow, I've never heard of France's problem with waste. Read about the Hanford Nuclear Site, a place where large volumes of radioactive material was released directly into the enivorment. Yet I've never seen a study that shows the ill effects of the Hanford Site. The US needs just accept that reprocessing will be required.

quote:
Solor panels are 100% self sufficent once built, are proven tech, and easy to intergrate into an existing grid


Oh gosh. NO. NO. NO. Solar panels are not self-cleaning. Motorized panels (the highly efficient ones) need external power conntections and maintainence for the motors. And as for proven tech.... give me a major solar installation that has lasted 25 years?!? There aren't any. The last point is the most ridicolous. Solar only helps when you have a reliable means of fast start/stop power at your disposal. Solar panels to be of true use need to be buffered using a form of enegry storage, be it pumped hydro, battery, hydrogen, etc.

The end arguement though... even in the best situations, the current per kWh price of solar is significantly higher than Nuclear Power. In less than optimal conditions, wholesale prices of 50 cents per kWh (Roughly what Spain and Germany pay) are needed to spur investment into solar. In constrat, in the United States, Nuclear power can be produced profitably in the range of 5 cents per kWh. Hmmm... thats -big- difference regardless of the cost of building a plant.


RE: Waste off money.
By sigmatau on 5/27/2010 5:31:31 PM , Rating: 2
Not only that, but nuclear power is CLEANER than solar power. This includes mining, processing, reprocessing uranium, transportation, building the reactor, and the final product: electricity. Yup, that's right, nuclear power, with all the above it has to go through to get to your home as electricity is still CLEANER than solar power. It is actualy the cleanest form of energy on par with wind power.

Look it up if you never heard of it.


RE: Waste off money.
By Millhauz on 5/27/2010 4:47:50 PM , Rating: 2
at least they've got hot weather. We in Czech Republic prefer to hide from rain under those panels, that's why the goverment supports them heavily... Maybe we can donate them to Greece as we go bankrupt ourselves


RE: Waste off money.
By BBeltrami on 5/27/2010 12:03:03 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
a solar station covering an area of more than 28,000 m can supply energy for 280 households per year


100 meters of solar farm per household is nearly the size of a soccer field. I'd really like to know the cost per household.

Los Angeles County has 1,276,609 households within 760 square kilometers. Utilizing this system to power the city, we would have to use more than 120,000 square kilometers of land. That's the equivalent of covering the state of California from the Mexico border to San Fransisco, from Nevada to the ocean, in Solar Panels.

Just sayin'...


RE: Waste off money.
By mattclary on 5/27/2010 12:21:11 PM , Rating: 2
Even though the author was remiss, we need to ASSUME she meant SQUARE meters. Think 10mx10m. Still a lot, but not the size of a soccer field.


RE: Waste off money.
By mattclary on 5/27/2010 12:24:24 PM , Rating: 2
100Sq meters should be the same footprint of a smallish, probably 2 bedroom house. A little over 1000 sq feet


RE: Waste off money.
By dgingeri on 5/27/2010 12:40:57 PM , Rating: 2
so, yeah, we'd have to cover most of California with solar panels in order to supply just LA with enough solar energy.

not very effective so far...


RE: Waste off money.
By mcnabney on 5/27/2010 1:21:11 PM , Rating: 2
Solar 'panels' have no business to be used in commercial operations. They are great for remote areas that are off of the grid, but they take up too much space and use too many rare and expensive materials to make any financial sense.

Now solar reflectors that heat a boiler, that makes sense. There is a whole lot of wasteland in AZ and NM that can be put to better use.

Oh, and to give some reference points. A single large wind turbine produces an AVERAGE output of 1.5MW. Solar only works in select areas - and Taiwan and CZ are not it.


RE: Waste off money.
By mellomonk on 5/27/2010 4:10:38 PM , Rating: 2
Actually energy producers are looking at solar more and more. It is relatively cheap and produces it's power at the peak of demand. The cost per kw/hr being bantered about here are suspect. Often you find that it is based on an average output which includes the hours (night) when the panel doesn't produce. From a commercial standpoint, solar is looked at as a peak demand producer. Future solar tech such as NanoSolar's will allow placement of panels in places you never thought possible. Like as window film on large buildings.

Solar thermal plants have promise for remote areas. Though there is still much development to be done, they can store heat allowing them to produce around the clock.

No single energy production scheme is going to satisfy our future needs. Solar, Wind, Nuclear, BioMass, Clean Coal, Wavepower, Geothermal, ect. Each will have it's place where it makes sense.


RE: Waste off money.
By MozeeToby on 5/27/2010 1:29:05 PM , Rating: 2
http://i.treehugger.com/images/2007/5/24/solar-wor...

The black dots are what would need to be covered to supply the entire world with power (though probably not including transmission costs since that would complicate the math quite a bit). Is it a lot of land? Yes, but it's also a lot of land that is basically uninhabitable if you chose the right sites for it. Right now it doesn't make economic sense, but eventually it will unless nuclear reprocessing becomes politically viable and as much as I'd love to see that happen, it just isn't going to any time soon.


RE: Waste off money.
By gamerk2 on 5/27/10, Rating: 0
RE: Waste off money.
By MozeeToby on 5/27/2010 1:55:16 PM , Rating: 2
I was merely responding to the GP's statement that you'd need to cover all of California with solar panels just to power LA. Obviously one of the big advantages possible with solar is reducing transmission losses and simplifying the grid with point of use production. Probably not 100% independent in a lot of areas, especially at night unless you're going to double the cost of installation with a bank of batteries, but a lot closer than what we are now.


Since when is 1.2 MW considered massive?
By corduroygt on 5/27/2010 11:41:44 AM , Rating: 4
As of 2007, worldwide there were 439 operational nuclear reactors with total capacity of 372,002 MW; making the average output 846 MW.

The reactors so far built in the US range up to about 1100 MW electrical output, but new ones up to about 1500 MW
are planned.




By therealnickdanger on 5/27/2010 12:00:01 PM , Rating: 2
Shhh, don't spoil this moment with your facts.


RE: Since when is 1.2 MW considered massive?
By omnicronx on 5/27/2010 2:25:58 PM , Rating: 2
I'm sure by massive, he means the area in which it will cover, not how many MW it will produce.

You make a good point though, and I would like to point out that the 1500MW figure is most likely PER reactor. The plant near me in Ontario is by no means new and is a 6 reactor plant that outputs 3100MW, around enough for 1-1.5 million people.

You could probably fit 3-4 of these plants within the space of the solar field being mentioned in this article.

This is not even the biggest reactor Ontario. We have a bigger one up north that as a maximum capacity of 7,276MW, with an average capacity of 4,640 MW per year depending on how many reactors were on.

Our 3 Nuclear power plants account for 50% of our power needs already, so I find it really funny that the Czech Republic thinks that it is a great feat to reach 15% renewable energy.

Lets be clear everyone, Solar/Wind is never going to be a comparable alternative. Alternative perhaps, but not comparable. We can achieve 4000x+ power output with a smaller area right now. And its not like Nuclear power is just going to stop moving forward, even if solar/win innovations come, its not like nuclear innovations are going to stop.


RE: Since when is 1.2 MW considered massive?
By Grabo on 5/27/10, Rating: 0
RE: Since when is 1.2 MW considered massive?
By corduroygt on 5/27/2010 5:17:27 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Unless major solar/ wind / wave other energy-producing ways that depend on renewable resources innovations come, of course. You can't predict the future with any certainty any more than the rest of us.

No point in having any solar/wind/wave installations outside of experimental ones until that breakthrough occurs.

quote:
Easily-accessible uranium will last for 50 more years with today's consumption rate, according to the IAEA. Perhaps it will be easy to fetch what uranium is hard to fetch today, then; perhaps the tech has evolved to allow thorium to mainly replace uranium.

The tech for throrium is already here, and there's also uranium reprocessing as an option.

quote:
It will likely produce hazardous waste yet for a while, and the fuel-processing will continue to require energy, and the depleted radioactive fuel will continue to accumulate; just as the fuel will likely have to be mined even in the future.

Besides processing the depleted fuel, which will reduce waste a lot, Uranium is a very dense material, so even 50 tons of it occupies very little space. Certainly a lot less than solar panels.

quote:
It seems logical that these paths are pursued.


Only as research projects, not government subsidized alternatives at the expense of taxpayers.


By Grabo on 5/28/2010 8:34:07 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
No point in having any solar/wind/wave installations outside of experimental ones until that breakthrough occurs.


You have a point, though I tend to believe that if the tech is used commercially here and there rather than just in two isolated experimental sites, there might be more of a willingness to invest in its development.

quote:
The tech for throrium is already here, and there's also uranium reprocessing as an option.


The tech for reprocessing is costly, and thorium as a power source has issues. Both, and particularly the latter, aren't currently abuntant therefore.

quote:
Besides processing the depleted fuel, which will reduce waste a lot, Uranium is a very dense material, so even 50 tons of it occupies very little space. Certainly a lot less than solar panels.


You don't have to bury depleted solar panels deep underground though. Besides, more than 50% of the currently available intermidate storage space for spent fuel in Sweden is being used, and though a final storage location has been selected, it has yet to see use.


peanuts
By paydirt on 5/27/2010 12:37:50 PM , Rating: 2
Doesn't sound like much megawatts. Why is this a story?




RE: peanuts
By dgingeri on 5/27/2010 12:43:07 PM , Rating: 2
we just want someone to make fun of.

point and laugh at the idiots wasting their money on technology that isn't effective.

with maintenance costs, this will likely cost them 3-5 times as much as their regular electricity costs.


RE: peanuts
By Fraggeren on 5/27/10, Rating: 0
RE: peanuts
By Spuke on 5/27/2010 2:56:57 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Actually solar doesn't have any maintenance costs, atleast not anywhere close to all other solutions AFAIK, that's the beauty of solar.
It doesn't?

http://www.borregosolar.com/solar-energy-services/...

http://www.sunrunhome.com/why-sunrun/leading-home-...


By Millhauz on 5/27/2010 4:38:36 PM , Rating: 3
Headline in yesterday's newspaper - "Solar costs country 1.5 billion a year" (which is quite a lot for our small country). Nobody cares about the electricity or being green, even the power companies complain that the spikes from random power generation can have a bad impact on the whole network. Thou the climate isn't bad, we don't get that much sunlight to make these steps logical.

When the goverment throws enough money in, everybody's all green. Wait for us Greece, we're right behind you




Don't be fooled
By camylarde on 5/29/2010 2:48:44 PM , Rating: 2
Not only we are not really building the plants in strive to become more green, neither is this a state activity here.

By a legislative error (or rather stupidity) the subsidized price of the energy bought from these plants is fixed and can be lowered by about 5 % a year only, while the end investment price for a solar plant has gone down by tens of percents in last few years.

The subsidy was aimed at a lifespan of a typical plant of 15 years. It expected the investment to be paid at about 10 years, and the rest was left for the plant operator to gain.

The advances in solar power technology now extends the lifespan of modern panels to 25 years, while return to investment currently stands at 7 years.

So it is a gold mine for those who have money and the people of czech republic will be mandatorily tripling their money because such is the legislation done here.

So no solar boom, but a daylight robbery in czech republic is happening right now. And yeah, it does depend on the amount of daylight too.




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