Arizona, world going solar thermal
April 25th, 2009Albiasa Solar of Spain next year will begin construction on a 200 MW solar-thermal power – with thermal storage – near Kingman, Arizona. The Kingman area was selected because it is one of the few places with transmission capability on existing power lines.
The plant will use mirrors to focus sunlight on tubes containing liquid, heating the liquid and turning it to steam, which then spins turbines. Molten salt will store heat from the plant so it can keep generating power after sunset.
Joseph Romm at Climate Progress has posted a schematic of the design:
There’s a new article in Environment 360 titled “A Potential Breakthrough In Harnessing the Sun’s Energy” on solar thermal. The article notes solar thermal projects are currently being planned or built in many regions around the globe, including North Africa, Spain, Australia, and the southwestern U.S.
While utility-scale solar thermal projects have provoked opposition due to the large land area occupied by the arrays, it’s hard to see how we’re going to solve our energy and climate change problems without large-scale concentrated solar facilities.