Located in the Andalusian countryside of Southern Spain, near Seville, is a giant 115 meter high concrete tower surrounded by a field of 624 huge mirrors. These mirrors collect the sunlight and focus it at the top of the concrete tower, where it heats water passing through pipes, converting it into steam. This steam drives a series of turbines that produce electricity. Simple, efficient, environment friendly and spectacular!
These 624 parabolic mirrors each having a surface area of 120m² are heliostats, that track the sun throughout the year, precisely focusing the sunlight to the top of the tower at all times. The temperature at the top rises to over 400'C (750'F).
The current capacity of the Solar Tower is 11MW. The plant when completed in 2013, will produce around 300MW – energy enough for 180,000 homes, equivalent to the needs of the city of Seville, and saving 600,000 tonnes of annual carbon dioxide emissions. We urgently need more of these.
Wow... I've never seen that before. Truly a world landmark for green energy.
ReplyDeletey isnt there more of this stuff around the world
ReplyDeletewasn't this ting in the movie 'Sahara'?
ReplyDeleteThis is an incredible concept and needs to be adapted throughout the rest of the world.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens on cloudy days or during hail storms?
ReplyDeleteThis can be applied to all the desert regions of the world, creating a new energy economy for regions who have only unproductive desert lands.
ReplyDeleteWhat happens on cloudy days or during hail storms?
ReplyDeleteCandles?
What you don't know about Solar energy is one, it's very expensive to start up. The cost per MW is three to four times more then current solutions. Two, it only works during the day. Three, no one lives near the desert so there is no way to economically get the electricity to the people. Four, if it's cloudy it doesn't work. That being said, the technology is there and we should use it, but it should make good economic sense.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome!
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i wonder how long it'll take before the CO2 emissions is saves exceed those from the construction. the mirrors will break and need replacement, they'll also need constant realignment, which will take energy and resources. then they'll be all the eco-hippies who drive all the way out there to see it, right before they go protest at the steel mill that made all the rebar for the 115m tall concrete block
ReplyDeleteYeah!! Nice job. I want to know who is the designer, what`s his name or group.
ReplyDeleteI am speechless! As an aspiring Power Systems engineer, technology like this is truly inspirational.
ReplyDeleteThis is Concentrated Solar Power (CSP for short). The technology has been around for a while now, and there are plants like this all over the world. It is suggested these could be installed in the worlds deserts, with DC current lines running to where people actually live. Cost now is obviously very expensive, but it may become economical one day.
ReplyDeleteIt provides a good answer for the middle eastern countries when their oil supply runs dry as they can set these things up all over the Sahara and export the electricity.
I can't remember the stat exactly but its something like; 'CSP plans covering 1% of the Earth's surface could supply all of the worlds electricity needs'
This is not real. Photoshopped!
ReplyDeleteof course it is photoshopped...it's still under construction! [to be completed on 2013]
ReplyDeleteThis is cool. We need to use all efficient sources of energy to reduce our dependence upon carbon-based sources.
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of being anal, and please correct me if I am wrong, but the post says that the mirrors "collect..." the sunlight. I believe that the mirrors can only reflect and re-focus the light. The panels that receive the reflected light "collect" it.
This does exist. It is NOT PHOTOSHOPPED, though they are planning to continue building upon it. I just watched a David Suzuki program where he and his daughter went to there and received a tour of the facility.
ReplyDeletethis is a good idea and it is ideal for the desert but how on earth will they get that 180,000 MW to civilization? if that problem can be solved which would cost a lot of money. There is so much fuel used in the creation of this is it really worth it? in all i like the ideal there are just some flaws in it.
ReplyDeleteSpanish Abengoa experiments with different technologies at Solucar (Latin Sanlucar, Seville). There are plants already working at Solucar (11Mw), not Photoshop :), but total projects (300 Mw) will be completed on 2013. They are making more plants in USA and the rest of the world.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abengoasolar.com/sites/solar/en/our_projects/solucar/index.html