The Netherlands is the latest country to explore the possibility of floating solar farms.
PE is committed to bring this technology into all land lock areas of the world especially in the Caribbean region USVI, BVI Puerto Rico Barbados the Bahamas.
Many densely populated nations are finding it hard to locate large sections of land to dedicate to the development of utility-scale solar projects. For more and more countries who are dedicated to reducing carbon and moving into the future with clean, renewable electrical generation, this means looking to the water to locate solar farms.
As with the large-scale wind power projects located offshore in the past, solar developers are finding that there are many advantages to offshore solar. The panels stay cooler, and efficiency ratings go up. There are little to no costs involved with location, and because the generation can be built in modular units on land and delivered to the location ready to “plug-and-play,” installation costs can be lower.
The Netherlands is the latest to go with offshore solar
According to Reuters, an offshore seaweed farm in the North Sea will be supplying the Dutch mainland with clean renewable energy within 3 years. Launching this summer with a pilot project of 30 square meters of panels, the project will expand to cover 2,500 square meters and provide enough electricity for 500 typical Dutch homes. The pilot project will be managed by Utrecht University and is located about nine miles off the coast of Dutch city of The Hague.
“In addition to removing the problem of a land shortage, there are several other benefits to building at sea, similar to those in wind energy,” said solar energy expert Wilfried van Sark. one of Utrecht University’s lead investigators.
“There is more sun at sea and there is the added benefit of a cooling system for the panels, which boosts output by up to 15 percent, “said Allard van Hookem, founder of Oceans of Energy, which devised the project. Van Hookem said he expects offshore solar energy to eventually be cheaper than offshore wind and mainland power sources, due mainly to a lack of land costs.
China converts environmental disaster site into floating solar plant
The Dutch are not the first to consider the many benefits of locating solar generation off-shore. Last year, Chinese company Sunglow opened its first floating solar power plant. The facility is located not on the ocean, but on a huge flooded coal mining facility. The giant, unintentional manmade lake now serves as a cooling system that improves the performance of the 40 megawatt solar farm. The plant is connected to the grid in Huainan.
Sunglow specializes in integrated inverter technology and their central inverter SG2500-MV employed in this plant features integrated inverter, transformer and the switchgear. The turnkey station has lower transportation cost due to its 20-foot containerized design and is specially ruggedized to handle the high level of humidity and salt spray.
Japan is a leader in offshore solar
In 2013, solar manufacturing giant Kyocera entered into a partnership with six other companies to launch Japan’s first offshore solar project. The 70MW Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega Solar Power Plant was built to take advantage of Japan’s feet-in tariff (FIT) for new, renewable generating facilities.
Expectations and interest in solar energy have heightened to a new level in Japan with the need to resolve power supply issues resulting from the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011. To further promote the use of renewable energy, the Japanese government launched a restructured FIT program in July 2012, which stipulates that local utilities are required to purchase 100% of the power generated from solar installations of more than 10 kilowatts (kW) for a period of 20 years.
Seawater benefits solar manufacturers as well
Seawater could prove to be a “game changer” for solar panels manufacturers and the whole industry. Since one of the key components in PV panels is Cadmium Chloride, which is extremely toxic and expensive, it affects both the manufacturing process and the price of solar panels.
Researchers from the University of Liverpool, however found out that seawater contains Magnesium Chloride, which could replace the highly toxic and pricy Cadmium Chloride. The fact that it can be extracted from seawater also means that supply is in abundance.
The price difference of the materials is more than significant. Cadmium Chloride costs around 300$ per kg and Magnesium Chloride on the other hand costs just 1$ per kg and is so safe that it is used for producing products such as bath salts and tofu. In terms of efficiency, the Liverpool research shows that Magnesium Chloride can have the exact same effect as it’s toxic substitute.
Thus replacing Cadmium Chloride with Magnesium Chloride would save the industry a massive amount of money and reduce risks of producing solar panels. This way, the natural solar energy can be generated by a product that relies heavily on a natural material itself. With prices going further down, panels will become available for a bigger portion of the population. You can find additional information about the research here.
PRIME ENERGY on the LCRA 3 138KV Switch Yards in IRAAN TX for LCRA Wind and Solar Farms Switchyards is 1,000 points of testing at each site. Three transformer spot network was used at each site.
- The project included six 53’ A-steel frames and three 26,000 lbs each T-Lines that needed to be set.
- Coordinated and supervised multiple electrical contractors and electrical facility design.
- Created MODBUS Tags and link to Analog and Discrete Tags Alarms, Trends and Historization
- Integrated SCADA with all HT and LT substation Remote Relay Settings
- Event and Alarm list with time stamp Time synchronization of all the equipment’s Measurement with data quality
- Monitoring of network equipment’s Audible alarm with filtering
- Detailed reporting of feeder data Two LAN subnet for substation and control room Three levels of Security
- The Wonderware client system consists of whole substation SLD, Individual substation SLDs, Measurements, Trends, Alarms, and Events
- By using the links one can easily view the Alarm/Event list, and trends (Real-time/Historical) and Relay details of a particular feeder.
- Drilled and poured 105 piers of concrete for each site of 8.0AC pads.
- Drilled 350 feet of grounding well for each pad and 50 feet beyond first water.
- All FOP resistance testing passed on each site.
Oversaw the following:
- Trenching, Backhoe, or Plowing was done three feet deep to control building wiring on each site.
- Installed Fiber Patch Panels for each site and connected them in the AEP and Next ERA fiber boxes.
- Optimization of the cable trench pair
Primary and Secondary/Service Cable Installation Splicing and Terminating
Transformer and Switchgear Installation and testing - Switching and Tagging Meter Installation Directional Boring
- Physical substation design including yard layouts, plans, sections, and details, grounding, lightning protection, control building arrangements, interior and exterior raceways, auxiliary AC/DC power systems, and associated bills of material.
- Understanding of construction documentation, including familiarity with architectural, structural, mechanical, plumbing, electrical, and civil engineering drawings.
- Additionally, knowledge of construction contracts and specifications.
- Protection and control design including panel arrangements, one line/single lines, three lines, AC schematics, DC equipment wiring, and relay panel wiring
- Prepared calculations for studies and reports (grounding, lighting protection, AC/DC load studies, etc.)
- Prepared equipment specifications for procurement and/or factory acceptance testing.
- Installed Fiber Patch Panels for each site and connected them in the AEP and Next ERA fiber boxes.
- Optimization of the cable trench pair
- Primary and Secondary/Service Cable Installation Splicing and Terminating
- Transformer and Switchgear Installation and testing
- Coordinated design activities with other departments (Civil/Structural, Networks, Transmission Line, etc.)
- Kept track of a 750 line item material tracker for all three jobs.
- Knowledge of concrete placements and finishing processes T.O.C and elevation issues.
- Knowledge of grading, traffic and pedestrian circulation, utility placement and design, parking lots, soil erosion mitigation methods, landscaping and lighting, and Storm Water Management.
PRIME Energy on GEH Principal Nuclear Consultant Wilmington, NC – Prototype design for Argonne NL Idaho Falls, Idaho.
- Worked on the ARC-100 advanced small modular reactor (aSMR) for Canada’s Bruce Power projects.
- Worked on the Exelon BWR and PWR digital upgrade projects for all their Nuclear power plants.
- Internet of things SW development project connecting Sales Force with SAP.
- Industrial Controls and SCADA software like Citect, Wonderware, GE Cimplicity, and Iconics applications. Responsible for coordinating software configuration, integration development, testing and deployment, and vendor technical activities.
- Tested instrumentation to ensure the meter is working properly.
- Assisted Maintenance in Procurement of repair/upgrade scopes for major turnarounds.
- Designed the plant start-up, normal process operation, normal process upsets, normal shutdown, and abnormal situations in training and simulation mode. Experience with troubleshooting equipment and components 20 25 MW Gas Turbines were replaced due to the turnaround. Ability to disassemble, troubleshoot, repair, assemble/align main turbines, substations, feed-water pump turbines, and associated components.
- Experience in basic machine shop skills, bearing maintenance, associated valve maintenance,
- coupling, and internal component alignment, mechanical seals, and basic rigging practices. ·
- Disassembled, inspect, reassemble, and restore turbine components as defined by the station
- Installed and commissioned the following Gas Chromatographs, and UV/IR Continuous Gas Performed modeling updates as needed in the project including SCADA and Substation Editor (SSE) modeling.
- Provided the standard Viewer Configuration Editor (VCE) for deployment and managed all necessary VCE changes.
- Provided modeling information for the ADMS applications, as needed and in a format consumable by the ADMS conversion processes without further manipulation.
- From an Engineering perspective, supporting the business to ensure that the company’s Geographic Information System (GIS) data model is sufficient to support the ADMS model needs including Feeder circuit connectivity and Topology and phase information on all devices. Internet of things SW development project connecting Sales Force with SAP.
- Experience within T&D Organizations: EMS, ADMS, GIS, OMS, NERC CIP, SCADA applications.
- Industrial Controls and SCADA software like Citect, Wonderware, Cimplicity, and Iconics applications.
- Responsible for coordinating software configuration, integration development, testing and deployment, and vendor technical activities.
- Working knowledge of cybersecurity and security tools
- Lead the maintenance of the enterprise compliance policies and procedures
- Lead the annual CIP-002 Cyber System identification process
- Lead the personnel security awareness, training, and access administration processes, CIP-004
- Managed the BES Cyber System Information protection program, CIP-011
- Lead the compliance of the CIP-013 standard, Supply Chain Security
PRIME Energy on the Siemens Energy Canada Bruce Power Projects.
- Designed the 3-D model for field instrument orientation check to ensure all field devices will work and operating and maintenance access is provided
- Designed the plant start-up, normal process operation, normal process upsets, normal shutdown, and abnormal situations in training and simulation mode
- Experience with BWR Reactor and GT Disassembly and Reassembly Experience with troubleshooting equipment and components. For their nuclear projects at Bruce Power and NB Power using the PCS7 DCS. Strong in converting Windows XP Application software into Windows 7 platform for all process units. 20 years of experience using VB, VBA, Fortran, and C++/C#/C programming languages.
- 20 years of experience using MS Visual Studio or other integrated development environments (IDE).
- The following Siemens Combined Cycle Gas Turbines were implemented on the PCS7 and T2000/T3000 DCS systems. Auxiliary Systems Module for Fuel Gas, Hydraulic Oil, Instrument Air, Lube Oil Auxiliary Systems Module for Fuel Oil, Purge Water, NOX Water Compressor Cleaning Skid Compressor Dehumidifier Skid Air Intake Filter House Air Intake Duct Exhaust Gas Diffuser Stack or Bypass Stack with Diverter Damper Power Control Center Electrical I&C Equipment Low Voltage Transformer for Static Excitation Equipment Low Voltage Transformer for Starting Frequency Converter
- Electrical Generator CO2 Fire Protection Lube Oil Fin-Fan Cooler Generator Fin-Fan Cooler.
- Performed and analyzed network loads for the main distribution system.
- Interfaced the AB 1730 package skids with the PCS-7 and T2000/3000 DCS systems.
- Extensive Wonderware experience with PCS7 and T2000/T3000 DCS.
- Facilitated the development, monitoring, and control of various process loops associated with real-time process applications such as BWR, and HVAC.
- Loops included RWLC, RRFC, FWHDC, pressure and turbine control, rod control, waste plant control, and power control.
- Preparation of general arrangement drawing for instrumentation control panels,
- Designed of I/O list. Excellent understanding and knowledge of Electrical Distribution Systems at Low (480V).
- Designed one-lines, three-lines, control schematics, wiring diagrams, relay panel arrangements, and cable lists for high voltage (69-500kV) substations.
- Proficient in the use of Power Analysis software ETAP and SKM
PRIME Energy Sentinel Energy Wind Farms Project 15775 Palm Springs, CA Scope:
- Prepared site for disassembly Received delivery of new Brush rotor on Unit 7 100 MW GE CCGT LMS1000 with MK VIe Controls. Disassembled to remove existing rotor Prepared cribbing and rail system for rotor extraction. Pulled existing rotor Set existing rotor on rotor stands. Removed new rotor from the shipping crate and placed on rails Installed new rotor.
- Reassemble and Prepared the old rotor for storage and shipment. Commissioned the new controls. Clean up site and tooling.
- SCADA, PLC, and DCS system design/redesign.
- Relay settings Programming and relay characteristic and function Retesting
- SCADA and RTU communication system integration, programming, and function Retesting