1980 Solar Power Satellite Program Review

long term (LEAP) projection published during 1979 by the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the Department of Energy. Projections based on several nuclear and fuel price scenarios were considered and showed little variation with respect to allocation of electrical comsump- tion by region. In addition to stability of allocation among regions even through the year 1995, the EIA projections also showed a high degree of stability in total electrical generation through the year 1995 over a wide range of scenarios. In all cases total electrical generation varied only modestly and the range of generation was from 4,355 trillion kilowatt hours to 4,438 trillion kilowatt hours. The attached regional generation map shows the boundaries, projected generation (year 2000), share of national total and number of allocated sites. These projections and allocations are based on the Series C (Medium demand-Medium supply) scenario published by EIA in the 1978 Annual Report to Congress, but the allocations would equally apply to most other scenarios. Individual regions vary widely with little or no pattern of geographic size vs. allocated rectennas. In the SERC (Southeast) region, 13 rectennas (out of 60) are required to meet 21% of national demand or 1,044,000 gigawatt-hours. The smallest of the regions in terms of generation is the large MARCA region (Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota) with only 2 rectennas to meet 4.1% of national demand. Other regions with high rectenna allocations are ECAR (Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, etc.) with 13 rectennas and WSCC (eleven western states) with 11. More significant than the number of rectennas or the number of eligible sites is the ratio between the two. This ratio of "eligible" areas to "required" sites can be expressed for several different energy scenarios and also for different definitions of eligible areas, e.g. with and without isolated areas, with and without considering EMC (electromagnetic compatibility) exclusions. A series of such ratios are presented as ranking variables 1-6 in the attached ranking table. Even without isolated areas, all but one of the regions (MAAC) has at least 12 times as many cells as required sites (variable 6). If all eligible cells are considered, the minimum ratio of cells per site in any region is over 20 to 1, and in all but two regions (MAAC, SERC) there are approximately 100 times (or more) eligible cells as there are "required" sites. Hence, even if a substantive proportion of nominally eligible sites prove to be unsuitable upon closer scrutiny, scarcity of available sites should not be a problem. The ranking table also shows a variety of other indices of siting "feasibility" by region, including: projected capacity increase; incidence of all potential exclusion variables; incidence of a subset of design and potential exclusion variables identified as having adverse environmental impact; and various indicators of the size of load centers within the region. In general the table indicates few problems of availability except in the midAtlantic (MAAC) region. Scarcity of large load centers relative to allocated rectennas may be a problem in parts of the midwest (MARCA) and west (WSCC).

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