this post was submitted on 18 Nov 2024
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A new Chinese solar project, costing just $1.65 billion, has an annual output of 5.7 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) - half that of an average nuclear power plant. (futurology.today)
submitted 3 months ago by Lugh@futurology.today to c/futurology@futurology.today
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This is the Mengxi Blue Ocean Photovoltaic Power Station, now China’s largest single-capacity solar power plant. Worth noting is that it's built in the Gobi Desert, an area twice the size of Ukraine. So there's room for plenty more.

Without grid storage, this is priced at about 10% of the cost of new nuclear projects.

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[–] IMNOTCRAZYINSTITUTION@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

would love to see something like that come to the deserts of america... but I'm not holding out hope.

[–] elooto@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago

Not sure which part of america you are referring to, but the united states has a lot of large solar farms.

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

billion kilowatt-hours

A.k.a. terawatt-hours? It always irks me when people mix SI prefixes with 'illions.

[–] rando895@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Its 650 MW (megawatts), and over an entire year that equal 5.7 TWh (terawatthours).

Which is similar to a large-ish hydrodam (unless I'm underestimating the size of our local dam)

Edit: I did some digging because I was interested in the 2 million households figure, and it looks like the per household energy consumption in China is (depending on the source, and its unclear if its consumption by those in the house, or just a flat per capital of total energy usage) is between 1/3rd, and 1/10th of where I live. Which means here that solar plant would power 330,000 homes, and there it would power between 1 million, and 4 million homes (obviously Im playing fast and loose with rounding here).

[–] eleitl@lemm.ee 2 points 3 months ago

Terawatthour (3.6 PJ) is TWh. TW is terawatt, a unit of power.

[–] horse_tranquilizers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Nuclear shines when the clouds dont allow the sun to.