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I would like to suggest a moratorium on solar developers calling their projects "Noor", "Ashalim" or "Manor Farm".
(Ashalim is a town in Israel now completely surrounded by solar projects. Noor means something like "light/ glow" in Arabic. Manor Farm - common placename in UK).
(Ashalim is a town in Israel now completely surrounded by solar projects. Noor means something like "light/ glow" in Arabic. Manor Farm - common placename in UK).
It is extremely confusing, especially as some of the news stories about these places are also confused. I *think* both Ashalim solar thermal projects are now technically commissioned, but I am really not sure yet.
One reason is probably that solar thermal firms have become wise to the dangers of splashily announced commissioning, given solar thermal projects often need years of calibration to reach full production. Here's Abengoa being proud it only took 4 months:
abengoa.com/export/sites/a…
abengoa.com/export/sites/a…
I don't like solar thermal electricity generation much, and think it will eventually lose to PV + batteries. But I have to do the biannual update report because every time I set one of my team to do it, they quit afterwards, and I dislike hiring more than I dislike solar thermal.
Also hybridization of solar thermal with PV is genuinely promising to reduce costs, though I'm not sure if this is mainly because PV is really cheap so the average $/MWh comes down.
