BP Solar to double capacity at Frederick, MA solar cell manufacturing plant

[NNadir]

BP Solar today unveiled its plans for a $70 million expansion project at its North American headquarters in Frederick, MD. The expansion will result in nearly doubling the facility's current casting and sizing capacity to approximately 150 MW. The company projects that 70 new jobs will be created. Other plans include an upgrade of the interior of the facility by employing sustainable design components.

Initial engineering feasibility studies into the project have already been completed and the company will now carry out detailed front-end engineering design work. The company says this expansion will make BP Solar's Frederick facility the largest fully integrated plant in North America.

"This is a significant investment in a world-class and well-established business," said Bob Malone, chairman and president of BP America. "This expansion will keep us in command of a growing industry by meeting future demand and providing innovative products to the market."

The expansion plans call for the construction of 140,000 square feet of new building space allowing the company to nearly double its casting, sizing, and wafering manufacturing capacity. Plans also include the relocation and integration of local warehousing and shipping facilities to the current site. Construction is slated to begin in the first half of 2007 and finish by the end of 2008 pending approval of local permits.

http://www.solarbuzz.com/News/NewsNAMA76.htm


There you have it. In about 2 years, BP Solar will double it's capacity to 150 Mega"watts" where of course as usual, the "watts" refers to the instantaneous peak power output at noon on a sunny day. The actual capacity utilization of solar power is typically around 20%, so actually the continuous capacity is more like 30 Megawatts.

New natural gas capacity being built in the US in 2008 will be about 17,000 MWe. Thus the solar capacity, at noon, peak on a cloudless day, will be slightly less than 1% of new US gas capacity.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p4.html

Overall US electricity capacity was close to 1,000,000 MW, to be exact 978,000 MWe: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epaxlfile2_1.xls Thus the 30 MWe (continuous) manufacturing capability for the BS, I mean BP Solar will be able to displace 0.003% of US electrical energy demand. Thus the new BP Solar plant will be able to replace US electrical capacity in a mere 33,000 years.

[stepnw1f]

1. Hopefully More Jobs Too!!!!

Go green!!!!!

[buddysmellgood]

2. Time will tell.

http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/MSD-full-spectrum-solar-cell.html

[kestrel91316]

3. Yeah, it's so important to remind everybody that, because

solar can't solve ALL our energy problems, and can't solve them instantaneously, it's vital that we reject all solar power out of hand and laugh derisively at the dummies who want to use it.

[lapfog_1]

4. You are comparing apple to oranges.

BP Solar is making solar panels, not electricity. Whereas the new natural gas capacity is producing electricity.

Taking your numbers, let's say this $70 M expansion is all that BP Solar adds, after 15 years, how much electricity is the BP Solar plant responsible for? The new natural gas expansion will be constant, to get more electricity from the natural gas, additional capital investment is needed.

Also, to complete the analysis, the delivered Kw hours have a total cost associated with them. The the BP Solar case, it's the cost of manufacturing the panels, the cost of the materials, the installation costs, the infrastructure to carry the produced power to the grid and the maintenance cost of the solar panels. The natural gas produced electricity has the following costs: Cost to build the power plants, cost in buying natural gas (which could fluctuate heavily over the life cycle), the HIDDEN cost of the environmental damage of producing more CO2, maintenance of the power plant and infrastructure costs of getting the power to the grid.

Once you include the hidden cost of environmental destruction, now estimated to be some number between 1 and 10 percent of global GDP, using natural gas or coal or any other fossil fuel just doesn't make economic sense.

[NNadir]

5. The point is not about economics. I oppose all natural gas plants.

I am merely pointing out that it is magical thinking to imagine that solar energy is sufficient to address global climate change.

I agree that the external cost of solar energy is vastly lower than natural gas. Everybody knows that. However the combined external and internal cost of solar energy is not cheaper than natural gas. Hence people build natural gas plants.

The solar industry is always saying "we are increasing capacity by 100 percent" as if this means something. I am pointing out that actually it means next to nothing, since the number is uncomfortably close to zero in the first place and thus it is trivial to double that number.

For instance, if I start with one dollar, it is really easy to double my wealth. I can work ten minutes at Burger King. If however I am trying to match 100's of millions of dollars, it's quite another matter entirely.

Solar advocates on this site are always breathlessly reporting "world's largest" solar installations, with the obvious intention of pretending that this is a significant advance.

However it is never a significant advance.

The evocation of the natural gas capacity is to show that solar isn't even close to keeping pace, never mind displacing. Somehow I think that people want to believe something quite different than that.

The external cost of energy effects all people living on earth, not just the relatively wealthy consumers who use the bulk of it. For this reason relatively wealthy people lying not only to humanity at large, but also to themselves, is no small matter, and should not be allowed to pass without comment.

I want natural gas, oil, and coal banned, and banned soon. I believe this is critical to human survival and the survival of the bulk of earth's non-human species. I contend that this is not even remotely possible without nuclear power. In response I usually get dithering, delusional and desperate remarks about magical solar energy, and magical wind power and magical biofuels. I really don't have a problem with anyone who can afford these things, using them. To be sure I have never heard of a wind plant I didn't like. But I insist that they are not enough, or even 1/50th as large as "enough." Toward this end continuously cite evidence - albeit with the use of a considerable dollop of sarcasm - to support my view.

I will of course, be willing to debate the relative merits of what has replaced fossil fuels when they are replaced, but not before.

The responses to my contentions never rely on data whatsoever. Mostly they involve criticizing me because I don't repeat the magical assertions uncritically. Regrettably, I am morally constrained from doing so.

BP Solar is one of the largest solar companies on earth, and they are jumping up and down cheering loudly about next to nothing.

As far as apples and oranges go, solar energy is only suitable to displace natural gas, since it is primarily a peak load strategy, as is natural gas. If you understand the nature of energy use there is nothing "apple-like or orange-like" about it.