California-based Solarreserve is currently negotiating with a mining company operating in Northern Chile to supply a CSP-PV Hybrid solution. In this Q&A Interview, Kevin Smith, CEO of SolarReserve, lays out the economics, the drivers for the project and the wider opportunities for concentrated solar power in mines.
Great quotes from the interview include:
“We configured a hybrid CSP-PV plant with 100 MW of CSP, 14 hours of molten salt storage, and 75 MW of PV. This configuration is truly a baseload generator – it generates 100 MW or more for roughly 90% of the hours in the year.“
“The renewable energy aspect of the project is actually not that important to them – it’s all about economics.“
“What works for this mine is that we supply their entire demand almost entirely with solar energy, so we are able to offer them a cost-competitive fixed-price contract over the long term.”
“We’ve never had a mine ask for 100% renewables. What they want is lower cost energy.”
“It’s important to emphasize that we are already offering 80% or 90% renewable supply at less than the cost of diesel. That’s already pretty big news.”
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