astronomy

Nevada Solar One

Nevada Solar One is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Nevada Solar One rather than just read about it. In short: Nevada Solar One is a concentrated solar power plant, with a nominal capacity of 64 MW and maximum steam turbine power output up to 72 MW net (75 MW gross), spread over an area of 400 acres (160 ha). The projected CO2 emissions avoided are equivalent to taking approximately 20,000 cars off the road.

Key takeaways

Nevada Solar One belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Nevada Solar One to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Nevada Solar One from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Nevada Solar One is a concentrated solar power plant, with a nominal capacity of 64 MW and maximum steam turbine power output up to 72 MW net (75 MW gross), spread over an area of 400 acres (160 ha). The projected CO2 emissions avoided are equivalent to taking approximately 20,000 cars off the road. The project required an investment of $266 million USD, and the project officially went into operation in June 2007. Electricity production is estimated to be 134 GWh (gigawatt hours) per year. In 2007, when the plant came on line, it was the second solar thermal energy (STE) power plant built in the United States in more than 16 years, and in 2007, the largest STE plant built in the world since 1991. It is located in Eldorado Valley in the southwest fringe of Boulder City, Nevada, and was built in that city's Energy Resource Zone, which requires renewable generation as part of plant development permits; Nevada Solar One was approved as part of Duke Energy's larger El Dorado Energy project, which built 1 GW of electrical generation capacity. The solar trough generation was built by Acciona Solar Power, a partially owned subsidiary of Spanish conglomerate Acciona Energy. Lauren Engineers & Constructors (Abilene, TX) was the EPC contractor for the project. Acciona purchased a 55 percent stake in Solargenix (formerly Duke Solar), and Acciona owns 95 percent of the project. Nevada Solar One is unrelated to the Solar One power plant in California.

History In 2006, located 30 miles (48 km) north of Tucson, Arizona Public Service's Saguaro Solar Facility opened, with 1 MW of electrical generation capacity. Nevada Solar One went online for commercial use on June 27, 2007. It uses similar technology and was constructed over a period of 16 months. The total project site is approximately 400 acres (1.6 km2; 0.63 mi2), while the solar collectors cover 300 acres (1.2 km2).

Technology Nevada Solar One uses proprietary technology to track the sun's location and concentrate its rays during peak demand hours. The plant uses 760 parabolic trough concentrators with more than 182,000 mirrors that concentrate the sun's rays onto more than 18,240 solar receivers placed at the focal axis of the troughs. These contain a heat transfer fluid that heats up to 735 °F (391 °C) and is used to produce steam that drives a Siemens SST-700 steam turbine, adapted to the specific requirements of the CSP technology, which is connected to a generator to produce electricity. The mirrors are manufactured by Flabeg AG in Germany. In contrast to the power tower concentrator concept that California's original Solar One project uses. The specially coated tubes, made of glass and steel, were designed and produced by Solel Solar Systems as well as by Schott Glass in Germany. Motion control was supplied by Parker Hannifin, from components by Ansco Machine Company. Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as the southwestern United States. Using thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can be extended to meet base load needs. Given Nevada's land and sun resources, the state has the theoretical ability to have more than 600 GW of electrical generation capacity using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One. It has been proposed that massive expansion of solar plants such as Nevada Solar One has the potential to provide sufficient electricity to power the entire United States. Parabolic concentrator facilities have been successfully operating in California's Mojave Desert commercially since 1984, with a combined generating capacity of 354MW from the Solar Energy Generating Systems.

Production Nevada Solar One's production is as follows (values in GW·h).

Fossil backup, night time preservation, and morning pre-heating, is provided by natural gas and provides up to 2% of total output.

In popular culture Nevada Solar One served as inspiration for the HELIOS One solar power plant's geographic location in the 2010 videogame Fallout: New Vegas.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Nevada Solar One

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Nevada Solar One claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Nevada Solar One before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Nevada Solar One ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Nevada Solar One

In research: Nevada Solar One appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Nevada Solar One in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Nevada Solar One is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures in Boulder City, Nevada, Energy infrastructure completed in 2007, Solar power in the Mojave Desert, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Nevada Solar One outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Nevada Solar One in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Nevada Solar One means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Nevada Solar One out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Nevada Solar One in simple terms?

Why does Nevada Solar One matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Nevada Solar One?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Nevada Solar One.