Xcel Energy, as the electrical provider for the steel mill, will purchase the power generated by the solar facility under a long-term contract with Lightsource bp. The competitive price of solar energy and its long-term budget certainty helps to ensure that the steel mill, along with 1,000 local workers, will remain in Pueblo. Additionally, [Rocky Mountain] has announced it is moving forward with construction of a new long rail mill in Pueblo.That is, the solar field will provide power to the grid that will be credited to the mill, whilst the mill draws power from other sources when the sun doesn't shine. "The solar production from the project, called Bighorn Solar, will offset about 90% of the annual electricity demand from the mill."
2.11.20
WHAT HAPPENS DURING THE NIGHT SHIFT?
I don't want to throw shade on a recent development at the Rocky Mountain Steel rail mill at Pueblo, Colorado. Solar electricity in volumes sufficient to spark an electric arc furnace? Sounds like a plan. "The solar farm, which will consist of nearly 750,000 panels, is being built on 1,600 acres at Rocky Mountain Steel’s site in Pueblo, Colo., USA, and on other plots. The mill will purchase electricity from the solar farm under a long-term contract with Lightsource." Nowhere in the Lightsource announcement is an answer to my question, although I suspect what's going on is interchange.
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power supplied by solar and credited to the mill when the sun is shining, and drawn from the grid when it's not...I'm sure that's how this works (and all the other '100% renewable' projects as well) but can't find where it says that in the links. Could you point me at it?
I strongly suspect that the economics of this approach don't work when the % of supply from renewables on the total grid exceeds a certain level, maybe 30% or so...and indeed may represent a de facto subsidy even now.
I inferred that from the "will offset about 90%." Power Company meters the power coming out of the solar farm, some of which might go more or less directly (I'm not sure how much inverting and transforming is involved) to the steel works, which has a separate meter of the power being used. The field might produce way more power than the steel mill uses during daylight, then the steel mill draws power from other sources on the grid (combined-cycle or hydro?) at night. In net, though, the mill is drawing more power from the grid than it is producing in its solar field.
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