Date published: 2006/06/07
The BBC says:
Construction work has begun in southern Portugal on what is set to be the world's largest solar power station. The 58m euro (£40m) plant near Serpa, 200km (125 miles) south of Lisbon, will produce enough electricity for 8,000 homes when it starts next January. The 11-megawatt solar power plant, to be made up of 52,000 photovoltaic modules, will cover a 60-hectare (150-acre) southern-facing hillside.
If solar power cannot be made to work in Portugal there is little hope for it as a technology, so this is a useful test. Presumably the £40m cost is just for its construction (including transmission lines?) and of course there is also the operating cost which needs to be considered. If it produces electricity for 8000 homes then just that £40m by itself works out to £5000 per household. With a discount factor of 5% over 30 years that works out to over £300 per household per year just to cover the build cost. (And it is not "carbon free" because presumably a lot of that £40m represents the cost of oil used, directly or indirectly, to make the plant in the first place.)
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