Fluor Draws Up 5 GW South African Solar Plant

Texas-based Fluor Corporation is drafting the master plan for a solar park in Upington in the Northern Cape that would rank among the world's largest.

October 19, 2010 | 2 Comments

South Africa's Department of Energy estimates that the plant – which would combine photovoltaic (PV), concentrated photovoltaic (CPV) and concentrating solar power (CSP) – would take a total investment of $20bn.

Fluor Corporation is developing a detailed conceptual master plan, to be unveiled at an investors’ conference on 28 - 29 October in 2009, based on a pre-feasibility study by Clinton Climate Initiative.

"We are closely collaborating with South Africa's Department of Energy and the Clinton Climate Initiative on this potential flagship solar power development," said Dave Dunning, president of Fluor's Power Group.

"Our company has a strong track record of achievement in South Africa. Just last month, Fluor commemorated its 50-year anniversary of ongoing capital project development in South Africa, and we hope to bring this clean energy initiative to fruition.”

RenewableEnergyWorld.com's article, "Gold in the Sky," has more details on the South African power market as well as this 5-GW project.

Fluor has also announced that its third-quarter earnings will slip by about $163m — or $0.90 per share — to pay for costs overrun in its 500 MW Greater Gabbard offshore wind project.

The company said it has faced several execution challenges, including material and equipment delivery issues, mainly in installing wind turbine generators and subsea cabling.

Fluor won a $1.8 billion fixed-price contract in 2008 to construct the wind farm off the east coast of the UK. All 140 monopiles and tower transition pieces are already installed and 53 of 140 wind turbine generators are in place. The project is expected to complete in early 2012.

With so much renewable energy development underway for Fluor, there will be massive opportunities for engineers looking to enter the renewable energy market. Last week at SPI, Jennifer Runyon sat down with Brad Friesen, VP of Renewables for Fluor to chat about engineering jobs in the industry. Hear what he had to say by playing the video below.

2 Comments

ANONYMOUS
October 26, 2010

Hi Henrik14 /

pls send me a message on my e-mail : aag1917@gmail.com, to talk about your invention? Thanks

Abdullah.

Marijan Pollak
October 25, 2010

I invented new kind of concentrating Solar PS, that would cost much less per MW of production capacity and take much less ground with near zero Land Footprint, because there would be the Greenhouses built in.
In addition, Wind PSs could be added if there is Wind on location with speed of at least 3m/sec. frequently enough.
Redundant thermal capacity would enable my Solar Farms to work 24/365 even covering long cloudy periods lasting 10 days or more.
Problem os strong energy produced by Wind is also solved.
I need just 50 thousands Euro for making the prototype, and I can have Pilot plant built in 3 months, after which mass production can start.
Due to modular configuration, even 465 MW of production capacity with 49 MW of Wind capacity could be built in less than 4 year time investing just 50 million Euro at start, and Farm would build itself from profit earned.
Electricity cost wouldbe as low as 1 Euro per MW of electricity produced, even if Farm is built all at once, when it would cost 500 million Euro.
In my country, industry pay 1000+ Euro per MW as market price.
that means that with just 300 sunny days per year, each MW of production capacity can produce 7.2 million Euro of market value, which even if sold for half price to grid enable Farm to pay itself back 3 times per year, and bring some profit also....
Finished Farm would bring over 2 billion Euro per year in profit, even when sold at half market price, and 1 billion even if market price fall in half :-))