Last year, South Australia made news by producing nearly 83 percent of its electricity solely from wind energy. The incredible scope was fueled by a $6 billion investment in both wind turbines and solar arrays. And following up on the impressive success, this year the southern state is all set to make arrangments for what will be the largest single-tower solar thermal power plant in our planet earth. Christened as the Aurora Solar Energy Project, the massive installation will boast a (proposed) output of 150 megawatts.
Interestingly enough, the solar thermal power plant will be constructed and managed by SolarReserve, the very same entity that was behind the ambitious Rice Solar Energy Project in California (which has since been stalled due to alteration of investment tax credits for renewable energy). In fact, the Aurora Solar Energy Project, to be built at Port Augusta in South Australia, will be based on a similar technology originally envisaged for the Rice Solar Energy Project.
To that end, like most concentrated solar power (CSP) plants, the Aurora Solar Energy Project will use a large number of heliostats (mirrors) that focus (and thus concentrate) the incoming sun-rays into a smaller zone. Simply put, this leads to the accumulation of heat – which in turn is ideal for energy storage solutions like molten salt. This setup can be further used to generate steam that would power the turbines for producing thermal electricity. So, in a sense, the resultant thermal electricity is indirectly sourced from the renewable ‘prowess’ of the sun. The following animated video does a nifty job of explaining this relatively simple scope of the heat generation, storage, and ultimate utilization for electricity –
More at:
Zdroj: Australia To Have World’s Largest Single-Tower Solar Thermal Power Plant
#science #tech