WEBVTT - Solar Thermal: All Night Long 0:00:08.560 --> 0:00:10.880 Do you have those moments where you think makes so 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:13.240 much sense? Why didn't I think of that? For me 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:15.320 at least, this seems to happen all the time. But 0:00:15.400 --> 0:00:18.080 one particular occasion was back in when I came across 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:20.320 a news story about a geothermal power plant that was 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:23.240 just reopening. To set it up a bit of context, 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:26.319 I look after the product for BANF, so how we 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.000 deliver the research tools, news and data to our users 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.040 across BNF dot com, the benof mobile app, and the 0:00:31.040 --> 0:00:33.480 Bloomberg terminal. But before I moved over to this side 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:35.600 of things, I was a BANF analyst. This was back 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.840 when BEANF really only covered renewables. So in renewables there's 0:00:38.840 --> 0:00:41.600 wind and solar and now batteries and the other stuff. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:45.120 I looked after the other stuff, mostly geothermal. So geothermal 0:00:45.120 --> 0:00:48.960 power generation isn't really realistically possible to do everywhere, but 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.919 think about a place that has volcanoes or hot springs. 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.960 It probably makes a lot of sense to do it there. 0:00:54.400 --> 0:00:57.800 In places it works. It's really a fantastic technology. Okay, 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:00.640 So back to the Aha moment. The plan in question 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:02.960 was the still Water plant out in the Desert, Nevada 0:01:03.000 --> 0:01:05.240 in the us look it up. It's owned by the 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.760 Italian utility in L and they did something really clever. 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.520 Now and it's a very very basic form. A geothermal 0:01:10.560 --> 0:01:12.560 power plant works by drawing hot water out of the 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:15.280 earth through deep wells I think thousands of feet down. 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:17.800 Think oil wells, but instead of oil and gas, they 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:20.680 pull up hot water for brine. This water then flashes 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.000 to steam to run a turbine, or it heats up 0:01:23.040 --> 0:01:26.160 another working fluid that vaporizes to run the turbine. What 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.399 ann L did was they put trough shaped mirrors around 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:31.200 the pipes carrying the hot water on its way to 0:01:31.200 --> 0:01:33.280 the power plant. And what this did with heat up 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.040 the water even more thereby boosting power output by an 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:38.720 extra two megawats from thirty three to thirty five megawats. 0:01:39.280 --> 0:01:41.360 Not a huge game, but it makes so much sense. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:43.399 Why wouldn't you do that? Why didn't I think of that? 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:46.440 To be honest, maybe I did, and I forgot. I 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:48.400 should go back and check my notes. I'm sure I 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.360 thought it. Yeah, totally. Anyway, this method of using the 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.760 sun to heat up stuff, well, it's another lesser known 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:58.000 renewable solar thermal as we'll hear about in today's episode, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:00.520 it can take a few different shapes and where it's possible, 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:03.400 it's really quite cool. Today we'll talk with BENEF head 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:05.920 of solar Analysis, Jenny Chase, about our latest look at 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.320 this subsector of the solar industry based on the solar 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:11.640 thermal market Outlook t BENEF users can get this report 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:13.960 on BENEF dot com, the BENEF mobile app, and BENEF 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.560 go on the Bloomberg terminal. As always, BENEF does not 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:18.480 provide investment or strategy advice, and you can hear a 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:20.480 full disclaimer at the end of the show. Him Mark 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:22.840 Taylor here with Dana Perkins, and you're listening to Switch 0:02:22.919 --> 0:02:29.760 on the BENF podcast. Hi Jenny, thanks for joining us today. 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.160 Hi Danna. We are here today to talk about solar 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.600 thermal and before we really get into the meat of 0:02:37.600 --> 0:02:40.320 the research, note, can you explain to us what solar 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:43.160 thermal generation is and how it differs from other forms 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:45.960 of solar energy like PV. So specifically, we're going to 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.840 talk about solar thermal for electricity generation. Now, solar thermal 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:53.080 for hate is a whole other field, and that's also 0:02:53.160 --> 0:02:55.800 quite useful because if you want to take a shower, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.040 if you want to feed something into an industrial process 0:02:59.040 --> 0:03:02.600 heat process. You can use solar thermal to increase the 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:04.720 temperature and ben might It takes us much energy to 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:07.799 increase to the temperature of water or another fluid from 0:03:07.800 --> 0:03:11.000 ten to twenty degrees celsius as it does to increase 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:14.400 it from five hundred five and ten degrees celsius. So 0:03:15.160 --> 0:03:20.000 even using low, relatively low value, low level heat can help. 0:03:20.240 --> 0:03:22.680 But today we're going to talk about specifically when you 0:03:22.760 --> 0:03:26.119 concentrate solar thermal into a fluid, make it really hot 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:29.360 and run a turbineal boiler and generate electricity from that. Generally, 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:31.919 how do you do that? Well, there's two main surviving ways. 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.080 You can either use a parabolic trough and this is 0:03:35.120 --> 0:03:37.000 where I wish we had pictures rather than being on 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.120 a podcast. You can either look at everyone. So yeah, 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:43.040 a powerbolic trough is exactly what it sounds like. It's like, 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:46.040 there are these troughs and they concentrate the sun falling 0:03:46.040 --> 0:03:48.400 on them into a pipe in the middle and they've 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:50.760 got that means that they've got miles of piping which 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:55.360 contains steam or it's nearly always steam under high pressure 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:57.800 and high temperature. Or you can have a tower design 0:03:58.040 --> 0:04:00.600 where you have a big field of mirrors and they're 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.480 all aligned perfectly to focus the heat onto one central boiler. 0:04:06.280 --> 0:04:08.360 One reminds me of a magnifying glass when I'm a kid, 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:10.960 you know, just concentrating the sun down a piece of 0:04:10.960 --> 0:04:14.680 paper too, well, burn the paper. That's basically what you do. 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:18.080 There's also final designs which are using flat mirrors to 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:21.440 do the same thing, but they're quite a minority technology, 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:24.360 so well, we'll probably not talk about those. Isn't this 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:31.760 generally a minority technology? Yes, Solar thermal electricity generation we 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:33.960 got really excited about it in two thousand and eight. 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.479 We thought, wow, this is cheaper than potable tex, and 0:04:37.520 --> 0:04:39.440 it was, but that was mainly because le techs was 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:42.080 really expensive back then. And then photobole takes got cheap 0:04:42.240 --> 0:04:44.400 and all we've stopped talking about solo them or so 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.680 much so the clast declines didn't come down. But it 0:04:47.960 --> 0:04:51.320 also has to do with its only useful in very 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.520 specific locations, and I think you reference very hot locations 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:59.520 as being particularly useful for this technology. Why is that, Well, 0:04:59.560 --> 0:05:01.920 first of all, the cost has come down. I mean 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:04.120 we were talking like four hundred and fifty euros and 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:06.640 mega hour and two thousand and eight, and we thought 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:10.880 that was cheap. I'm sorry, yeah, it wasn't cheap, but 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:12.800 now we thought we thought it was kind of cheap 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.800 because potobo tex was really expensive, and today some of 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.600 the lowest bids are coming in around seventy or seventy 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.400 three dollars and megaw our. I'm a bit skeptical about those, 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:24.599 but even our calculations suggests that it's you can do 0:05:24.720 --> 0:05:27.279 solar them or for a hundred or somewhere between hundred 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:32.600 and hundred and fifty degrees dollars for reference pvs AT. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:39.200 So this is expensive stuff and you can only do 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:42.400 it somewhere that has a high amount of direct installation 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.080 because it doesn't unlike potable tax it doesn't capture reflected 0:05:46.320 --> 0:05:49.320 or or the fuse slide, so it needs to be 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.360 really sunny and the sunny needs to beat down directly 0:05:52.440 --> 0:05:54.360 and not a lot of dust in the atmosphere, which 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:58.280 is a problem, and so it's quite specific locations. What 0:05:58.440 --> 0:06:01.880 it does offer, though, is storage if a couple of things. 0:06:01.880 --> 0:06:03.799 First of all, it supports the grid better than photoboll 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:07.640 taps because there's a spinning thing. Grids like spinning things. 0:06:07.680 --> 0:06:12.960 It produces a that produced a c generation actual spinning metal. 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:17.160 For everybody listening, it's frequency regulation, right, it's frequency that 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:20.520 the proper term is frequency regulations. But basically it's just 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:25.160 that you've got inertia if you have spinning metal, and 0:06:25.200 --> 0:06:29.120 that means that if the grid wobbles, the metal keeps 0:06:29.120 --> 0:06:31.160 spinning at the same much the same rate, and that 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:33.520 makes the grid wobble less. So you talk about these 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.520 really hot locations, so we we can't have too much sand. 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:39.680 Sand is going to get in the way, but you 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:41.279 do need a lot of heat. Where in the world 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:44.400 of these projects being built right now, so they're being 0:06:44.440 --> 0:06:46.840 built a lot of them in Morocco. Part of the 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:49.599 reason for that is that the Moroccan government are quite 0:06:49.680 --> 0:06:51.960 forward looking at about this, and they're thinking about how 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:55.200 they're going to decarbonize and supply their country going forward. 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:57.880 A bunch in the United atib emmates and the other 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:00.880 thing about the Middle East and North Africa, which fits 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:03.919 solar thermal quite well, is that they mostly have a 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.000 very high peak of energy demand in the evening, and 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:10.520 that's where solar thermal's real advantage comes in, because you 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:14.880 can actually store energy from solar thermal. You just know 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.600 something that gets really hot and stays hot, and then 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.640 you can use it to to make steam to run 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.720 the turbine after dark. So usually this medium is molten salt. 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:26.600 Salt has a really high specific heat capacity, so it 0:07:26.640 --> 0:07:28.440 stores a lot of energy when you heat it up. 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:32.840 So you make it five degrees centigrade, leave it there, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:35.760 and then when you need the power you use that 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.120 to make steam and run the turbine. It's a mixture 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:44.120 of sodium chlorate and other salts. It's quite a tough 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.880 fat because this is I'm sure, and it's well insulated 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:50.320 as well. You do not want this stuff to freeze. 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.720 You especially don't want it to freeze in pipes because 0:07:52.800 --> 0:07:54.520 that's a right pain in the neck to get out. 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:56.600 How many hours of storage are we talking about? Does 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.760 this get me to the next morning or do I 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.280 need to go make sure I go to bed before 0:08:00.320 --> 0:08:02.640 I run out of electricity. You can have as much 0:08:02.680 --> 0:08:05.000 moden sol as you like. You just make enough of 0:08:05.040 --> 0:08:07.720 a solar field to heat it up. So Sara Dominado, 0:08:07.800 --> 0:08:09.960 a plant that's being built in Chile, has seventeen point 0:08:10.000 --> 0:08:12.920 five hours of storage. It's basically a baseload plant. That's 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:17.000 pretty cool. It's I've always thought of solar thermal, So 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:18.640 for everybody listening, I used to I still look at 0:08:18.640 --> 0:08:21.360 a lot of the geo thermal market, right market, I 0:08:21.400 --> 0:08:24.160 don't know. And you could argue that geothermal is a 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:25.760 lot like solar thermal and that it's kind of like 0:08:25.760 --> 0:08:27.960 a science project. You get a lot of oh, that's 0:08:27.960 --> 0:08:31.000 really cool moments, but you also get it peppered with like, okay, 0:08:31.120 --> 0:08:33.680 but this is only work in certain specific places. I 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:35.920 was used to some of the geo thermal market by 0:08:35.960 --> 0:08:37.880 the old song nice work if you can get it, 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:42.120 because it works in really specific places. I am going 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:44.400 to argue though, that a lot of the conversations we 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.360 have with analysts talk about the future of electricity and 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.080 grid connection is a lot of different combinations of things 0:08:51.200 --> 0:08:53.320 and looking at things that are right for and I 0:08:53.360 --> 0:08:57.360 get that there's probably certain technologies that have more locations 0:08:57.360 --> 0:08:59.640 that they could go in, but it is, you know, 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:04.839 just an increasingly diverse grid is what potentially we think 0:09:04.880 --> 0:09:08.160 the future holds. One of the things you point out 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.800 in this research note was that solar thermal actually can 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:13.679 really benefit from the presence of photovol takes at the 0:09:13.720 --> 0:09:17.160 same time. So what what is the benefit? Is it economic? 0:09:17.480 --> 0:09:20.120 It's not exactly that the solar firm will benefits. It's 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:22.440 just that photobole tapes is cheaper than solar thermal. So 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.880 if you average the costs over a bigger plan, you 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.480 get a lower average cost of energy. But what you 0:09:27.520 --> 0:09:30.800 can do is solar firm has a lot of parasitic losses. 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.160 You've got a pump fluid, you've got to get things 0:09:34.320 --> 0:09:36.840 started in the morning, you've got to tilt the mirrors, 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.520 whether they're parabolic, trough or tower and heliostat, and you 0:09:39.520 --> 0:09:41.560 can actually use photobo tapes to run that since all 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:43.559 those things are mainly running when it's light. And then 0:09:43.600 --> 0:09:46.160 you can use a solar thermal to store your heat 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:48.559 in the tank, which means that when the sun goes 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.880 down and you can start taking that heat out. So basically, 0:09:52.240 --> 0:09:55.439 if you hybridize solar thermal with PV, you could provide 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.480 the daytime power for the grid but also for the 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:03.760 parasitic losses, and then you run the solar thermal after dark. Well, 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.440 technically you take out the stored energy from the solar 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.600 thermal after dark and you run that turbine and that 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.640 means you can have baseload power even cheaper than if 0:10:11.640 --> 0:10:14.480 the whole thing was solar thermal. She met in Morocco, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.079 You met in Chile. Are there other places that are 0:10:17.080 --> 0:10:19.760 looking at this? Couldn't pop up anywhere else? Well, Spain 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:23.160 has done two point three gigawats and stopped. Spain's actually 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.040 quite marginal for sunniness, quite marginly sunny enough for solar 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:30.000 thermal for starters. And secondly, they had this big policy. 0:10:30.000 --> 0:10:32.280 They built a bunch of fifty megawatch plants that were 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:37.439 all mostly kind of the same. They're parabolic trough that 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:40.000 that fleet is working quite well, though it took it 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:42.360 a long time to ramp up. But we used to 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:45.920 think powabolic trough technology wasn't really improving, but it actually is. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:50.160 It's a good question. But tracking better. I think that 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.920 it's little things like that because these plants were all 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:56.600 built by but their capacity factor actually increased up to 0:10:57.880 --> 0:11:02.040 so obviously without totally we hoilding these plants, these companies 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.280 are learning better how to operate them and they haven't 0:11:05.320 --> 0:11:09.920 been like any big molten salt leaks lately lately. That 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.800 a thing, it's a thing. What happens when there's a 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:17.439 molten salt leak, you get molten salt everywhere. It's not pretty. No, 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:21.319 I mean that sounds like a bummer, But in reality, 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:23.680 what does that do to the plant? Is it a 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.280 big clean up? They have to shut everything down for 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:30.840 a really long time. Is it hazardous. It's not that hazards, 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:34.160 just salt, but it's hugely disruptive to the plant. You 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.360 have to clean it up. I'm pretty sure that there 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.760 are rules about leaving loads and loads of salts lying around, 0:11:39.880 --> 0:11:41.560 And of course you have to then get a new 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.200 containment vessel and another bunch of molten salt, and salt 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:48.560 is not super expensive, but it's not cheap either. You 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.400 have to get a specialized one that meets your property. 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.520 The mixture is actually quite important, so you want to 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:56.800 have a mixture that you understand the properties of, and 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.120 of course if it leaked out, you probably want to 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.000 get a better thing to hold it in. This time, 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:04.680 molten salt as a form of storage, I think sort 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:06.760 of makes these projects unique because a lot of the 0:12:06.800 --> 0:12:09.600 time people are talking about lithium ion batteries these days. 0:12:09.920 --> 0:12:12.800 So my question is, are lithium ion batteries do they 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:15.120 have a role to play in the solar thermal space. 0:12:15.520 --> 0:12:19.000 I think they have a big role in replacing it probably. 0:12:19.160 --> 0:12:21.920 I think photobotapes and batteries are probably going to ultimately 0:12:22.240 --> 0:12:25.640 beat so a thermal with molten salt storage to provide 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:31.360 baseload or day long duration power molten salt. At the moment, 0:12:31.400 --> 0:12:33.920 it is slightly cheaper I think for the long durations 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.640 over eight hours of storage, but it's not coming down 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:41.480 the plants that exist. They run, and actually some of 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:44.880 the power trough plants run quite well, but they have 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.920 they have problems. I think we're probably going to end 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.920 up using lithium ion more. The other thing with molt salt, interestingly, 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.160 is that you don't need to use it with solar thermal. 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:57.400 You can just heat it with whatever electricity you've got. 0:12:57.640 --> 0:12:59.680 I did some back of the envelope calculations for this 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:02.760 report about heating it with wind and then using it 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:05.040 to provide district heating. Now, the problem with that is 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.520 that you only cycle it probably once a year or so, 0:13:07.840 --> 0:13:10.880 and that means that the capex of putting this big 0:13:10.920 --> 0:13:14.600 molten salt plant underground is quite high if you're only 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:16.520 gonna if you're gonna heat it up in summer and 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.240 then discharge it in winter. But if you've got wind, 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:21.280 a lot of wind in the winter, maybe you can 0:13:21.320 --> 0:13:23.640 consider something like that. How much would it matter to 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:26.600 lose your spinning reserve? This doesn't keep going. I'm not 0:13:26.640 --> 0:13:29.640 a grid expert, but grid experts don't seem super concerned. 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:31.320 I think that a lot of them are suggesting that 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:34.120 if you have batteries that are being that are paid 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:37.120 to provide frequency response so that they do respond on 0:13:37.160 --> 0:13:40.199 a very short time frame to the grid fluctuating, you 0:13:40.240 --> 0:13:42.240 probably don't need spinning reserve, or not as much as 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:44.360 we have. We're spending a lot of time talking about 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:49.319 molten salt rather than solar thermal. But there locations where 0:13:49.600 --> 0:13:52.960 molten salt is particularly well adept, and not because you 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:55.800 do reference putting it with wind or other sources of technology. 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.400 And I'm just wondering if there are physical barriers. Well, 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:02.880 it's a big tank of really hot stuff, so you probably, 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:04.760 I mean, you need quite a lot of space, you know, 0:14:04.880 --> 0:14:07.880 quite a lot of insulation. You probably don't want to 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:09.800 have it right next to somebody's house because if it 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:11.480 does leak out, there's going to be a wave of 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.320 really really hot stuff, and I think you want a 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:19.840 bit of a barrier. It is terrifying a volcano. I 0:14:19.840 --> 0:14:22.960 don't think there's a location big location barrier. You just 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:26.120 probably don't want it in your house. Okay, so this 0:14:26.200 --> 0:14:29.960 is definitely a utility grade solution. And but I mean, 0:14:30.000 --> 0:14:33.560 so solar thermal, so we're talking about large projects. Is 0:14:33.600 --> 0:14:35.640 it hard to find locations for these projects that are 0:14:35.640 --> 0:14:39.120 actually physically close enough to the consumers that makes it 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:41.960 so that the losses are minimal enough so the economic 0:14:42.080 --> 0:14:45.360 their economically viable projects. I don't think so. I mean, 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:47.920 there's a lot of dessert in the world, so in fact, 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.920 for solar thermal location is not a massive problem. The 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:52.840 problem is that no one really wants to pay over 0:14:52.840 --> 0:14:55.360 seventy for power. How do they deal with all of 0:14:55.400 --> 0:14:56.920 the sand and the dirt that does get in the 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.280 way of the functioning of the plant? They clean them 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.640 so it's just a out of water. Um, it's usually water. 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:06.720 It can also be done dry cleaning. That dry dry 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:10.560 cleaning with with just soft brushes or cloths can actually 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:13.720 make more sense in very dusty environments because it's not 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:15.880 the sun that so much the problem, it's actually the 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.440 fine dust that clings to the panels, and particularly in 0:15:19.440 --> 0:15:21.680 the Middle East, some of that dust if you put 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:23.920 water on it, it kind of turns into cement, so 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:26.080 you want to dry clean. So this isn't real bad 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:28.960 to doing this breshing. This is people mostly at the moment, 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.080 it's people, but it could be robots. I think we'll 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:34.120 have to have a mirror pressure appreciation day. That sounds 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.240 like a really intense job. I think it's it's not 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:39.000 a great job. You can you can do it at night, 0:15:39.040 --> 0:15:41.320 of course, so at least, in fact, you prefer to 0:15:41.320 --> 0:15:45.000 do it at night because so at least you're not 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.160 necessarily exposed to the desert sun all day. These plants 0:15:48.160 --> 0:15:50.920 also need to be cooled at certain points, and there's 0:15:50.960 --> 0:15:54.040 wet cooling and dry cooling. What are the benefits of those. 0:15:54.160 --> 0:15:56.520 So basically, whenever you've got a turbine, it's running on 0:15:56.560 --> 0:15:59.920 heat differentials, so you need to dump the heat somehow. 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.400 Wet cooling you use water to dump the heat into 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:06.160 and some of that evaporates and and a lot of 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:08.040 the energy that you're a lot of the temperature that 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.080 you're trying to lose a lot of the heat heat 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:13.200 that you're trying to lose is through evaporation, and that 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:17.240 does use a fair amount of water. Dry cooling is 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:19.160 when you just basically expose it to the air and 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:22.040 let the air cool it down, which is less effective, 0:16:22.160 --> 0:16:23.920 but it doesn't use so much water. In a place 0:16:23.920 --> 0:16:26.720 where it looks like these locations are locations it don't 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:29.520 have a lot of spare water to go around. Do 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:32.160 you see that is a potential limitation in the high 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.240 ambient temperature, Yes, it is definitely, definitely a limitation. Yes. 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.000 I think nearly all the plants being built at the 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:40.520 moment of dry cooling, so they use less than the 0:16:40.520 --> 0:16:42.960 wet cool plants. How often do you write about solar 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.080 therpal as a topic, roughly once every two years. It's 0:16:46.080 --> 0:16:48.520 a quite a slow moving market. There's about six point 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:51.320 nine gig of what's installed. We're expecting about eight point 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:53.640 six gig of what's to be installed by twenty three, 0:16:53.680 --> 0:16:56.320 and that's compared with the current photoble type capacity of 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.160 five hundred gigawatts six handred by the end of this year. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:03.600 Still a thermal it is rumbling on, and although what 0:17:03.720 --> 0:17:06.480 we haven't talked about much is tower plants under performing. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.560 In fact, the power what trough plants are doing fairly 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.040 well and becoming quite a mature technology, with plenty of 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.200 proof that they were so. We will keep an eye 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.040 on this sector, but in general I am expecting it 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:20.600 to lose out to fotial tapes and Pastoriason Jenny, thanks 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.879 for joining us. Thank you, Mark. 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