Water and Concentrated Solar Power vs. Coal Water Usage

I just got off a very informative conference call from the Solar Energy Industry Association. I urge everyone to listen to it to get a heads up on American support for utility scale solar.

Bottom line, 75% of Americans from both Blue and Red States, as well as independents, all would prefer solar and wind power on public lands than developing public land for other (polluting, 19th century) energy sources.

One of the things that's been in the news lately about concentrated solar power is its heavy water usage in desert areas where water is scarce and set to be more scarce as populations increase around these areas.

In a Q &A after the presentation, I was interested to learn how CSP projects compare to water usage in traditional coal fired plants.

I forgot which of the speakers was talking (forgive me), but once again, it appears to be a double standard. Solar projects are being held to the fire for sucking up too much water, yet according to the developer at this conference, coal plants use equally as much water as CSP. Both technologies utilize steam turbines for cooling to generate their electricity. One heat source comes from burning coal. The other from the sun.

There's another difference as well: Some CSP technologies can utilize dry cooling. Apparently, this is a slightly more expensive process than wet cooling. So the problem is a market one, where utilities that commission projects are under pressure to go with the lowest price per watt, not the least amount of water usage. Thus, there is little incentive to develop and bid the dry systems until the public starts to see more droughts and water prices going up.

Another point mentioned by SEIA President, Rhone Resch, is that many solar farms are being built on former crop farm land, which used far more water than any solar farming.

All of this is to say that I think once again that the solar companies need to be more media savvy. If all things are equal in terms of water usage by a coal plant versus a solar plant, and the solar plant produces clean energy, CSP companies need to hit that button and hit it often. Likewise, if solar farms use less water than real farms, hit that button over and over again too when presenting utility RFPs.

Let's get that 75% public approval figure to 99%. (The 1% will be the coal lobbyists in Congress.) The only way to reach that goal is with more, more, more communication and education to the media and to the public. That communication must be visual and it must be comparative to coal. The same for nuclear. When that is done effectively and often, side by side, solar will be the winner and solar policies will have an easier time in Congress and competing for utility developments.

Tor Valenza aka “Solar Fred” advises solar companies on marketing, communications, and public relations and is a partner at solar referral service SolarPowerRocks.com. Contact him through REWorld or follow him on Twitter @SolarFred.