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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. (self.futurology)

submitted 1 month ago by Lugh to c/futurology

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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 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month 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 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 1 month ago

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

[–] horse_tranquilizers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Nuclear shines when the clouds dont allow the sun to.