Spain’s solar tower plant

Spain has built the world’s largest solar tower plant in the desert outside Seville. The plant consists of more than 1,000 mirrors—each about half as big as a tennis court—which direct the sun’s rays on water pipes at the top of a 40-storey-high concrete tower.

The heat from the mirrors converts the water into steam, which is then used to drive turbines that produce electricity. The plant has not yet opened, but is already producing 11 megawatts of power, enough to run 6,000 homes yearly. Ultimately, the plant is expected to provide enough power for more than 600,000 people.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Spain has more than 50 similar projects on the drawing board which, by 2015, are expected to provide more than two gigawatts of power. Spain also plans to export its solar power to Morocco, Algeria and the United States.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 20th, 2010 at 2:37 pm and is filed under On the Fringe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.