Feel The Heat! US Approves Thermal Solar Power Plant

Solar power is the future. There are lots of ideas for renewable energy out there, but I am convinced that solar will be the only energy source truly strong enough to handle our power needs.

So we got some good news to that end! The first solar thermal power plant in the United States just got approval to be built in the great (sunny) state of California.

The approval is for a 250-megawatt solar thermal power plant by the Beacon Solar Energy Project. The approval came as a direct result of the green energy incentives granted by President Obama.

The plant will operate on over 2000 acres of land and will use abut 521 million gallons of water annually.

So, I wrote a post awhile ago on the Physics of Solar Power. That post described how semi-conductors are used to make the more common photovolataic cells used to generate electricity using the sun’s energy.

Thermal solar plants work differently. What happens is that a series of parabolic mirrors are installed in long rows surrounding one large tower in the centre. The mirrors will follow the sun throughout the day they are angled in such a way that the sunlight will be focused on water filled tubes.

Thermal Solar Power uses mirrors to direct sunlight onto a central tower, heating water into steam and driving turbines.

These tubes will then get extremely hot, several thousand degrees in fact, and the steam generated will be used to spin turbines, and thus generate electricity.

Its a bit less fancy than the semi-conducting solar panels, but it produces electricity just the same. And 250 megawatts is nothing to sneeze at either; thats enough to power 200,000 homes!

And lets not stop there! The final approval of a 1000 megawatt solar thermal power plant (The Blythe Solar Power Project) is nearing completion. This plant will also be built in California, be 7000 acres large and will generate enough electricity to power 800,000 homes!