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Minnesota solar project set to replace retiring coal plant reaches 710 MW
(www.solarpowerworldonline.com)
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this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2026
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I think we should keep the coal plant in warm storage just in case. One big hail storm/tornado could cripple this system. Just food for thought in an emergency.
In fairness, I don't think that a coal power plant would fare any better against a tornado.
In 2024 a tornado hit a solar field. I was wondering how the industry was responding to this.
Found this article.
https://www.powermag.com/the-solar-industry-is-getting-smarter-about-storm-defense/
I cannot find details on if these are fixed or tracking panels.
Also looking at the map, it doesn't seem like this is all one big facility, but distributed across a few miles.
https://xcelnew.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#1U0000011ttV/a/R300000FUW0E/7e5aROHbB8Gc6t9GXRh3bZLWmosuYiDjb7ZPfTVZYHg
It is neither cheap nor easy to keep a coal plant in working order with a supply of fuel, “just in case”. Especially one that was set to retire anyway so probably has a lot of deferred maintenance and end of life components. Very much not worth it
Redundancies for plant outages are already a feature of the grid
Nah, convert it to nuclear
I would have suggested that as its the best bang for the buck. But people lose their mind when its on the table...
Building nuclear in a country with proper safety standards and everything is insanely expensive, where did you get the idea that it's the "best bang for the buck"? There are always cost overruns and they tend to be a multiple of the original project cost estimate.
Also you need to keep buying/extracting nuclear fuel to run a nuclear power plant... With solar, the sun is the fuel! With no buying or extracting, it removes a big ongoing cost from the equation and significantly improves self-reliance. I don't understand how this seems to not communicate to people.
A good chunk of the cost of a nuclear plant is all the steam driven turbines and power infrastructure. That's already there in a retrofitted coal plant. And even without that, nuclear is cheaper in the long run. And even without that, not everything is about the god damned money.
You want nuclear plant and natural disaster to meet each other?
Hail isn't a big problem for solar
I'm not sure why you're getting down votes for this. Isn't having some redundancy or backup plan a good idea? What am I missing here?
Because small scale breakdowns are irrelevant with today's power grids. Redundancy is provided via the next city/country nearby. Importing the power might be a few cents more expensive during peak hours, but that's nothing compared to the costs of having an outdated power plant doing nothing for years.
However, the real answer why he's being down voted is because it's a pretend intellectual argument favoured by people against renewable power generation, without actually contributing anything of worth.
Likely because the coal plant was set to retire anyway. No point in paying someone millions to keep this coal plant as a backup for rare events.
The Power company will have contingencies and the national grid to rely on, which are cheaper than keeping an old coal plant warm.