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One report stated that molten salt in concentrated solar plants can store energy at 99% efficiency. It didn't say what the time period was. Must be about a minute.
This is an advantage over PV solar plants that have no storage. But they are big and expensive.
Ivanpah is 3500 acres. Cost $2.2 Billion. And is averaging 80MWh for the year. This is half of what Solar Star PV makes. For the same price. But Solar Star has no storage.
To add 12 hours of batteries to Solar Star over three, 8 year battery lives at $400/ kWh, would increase the cost of it's electricity from $0.085 / kWh to $0.35 so considering it's storage, Ivanpah's $0.17 cost is cheap.
Unless you consider that I am paying $0.039 for generation portion of my electricity right now in NY.
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