A Tower of Molten Salt Will Deliver Solar Power After Sunset

[Playinghardball]

For the first time, solar thermal can compete with natural gas during nighttime peak demand

Pillar Of Salt: More than a million square meters of mirrors focus on a tower of molten salt to generate power for the Las Vegas Strip.

Solar power projects intended to turn solar heat into steam to generate electricity have struggled to compete amid tumbling prices for solar energy from solid-state photovoltaic (PV) panels. But the first commercial-scale implementation of an innovative solar thermal design could turn the tide. Engineered from the ground up to store some of its solar energy, the 110-megawatt plant is nearing completion in the Crescent Dunes near Tonopah, Nev. It aims to simultaneously produce the cheapest solar thermal power and to dispatch that power for up to 10 hours after the setting sun has idled photovoltaics.

“When the grid wants 110 MW, we’ll provide 110 MW. There will be no variability,” says Kevin Smith, CEO for SolarReserve, the plant’s developer, based in Santa Monica, Calif.

Crescent Dunes, due to come on line by the end of this year, uses over 10,000 mirrors to focus sunlight on a heat receiver atop a 165-meter-high tower—a layout resembling California’s massive Ivanpah solar power tower. However, while Ivanpah’s receiver heats steam and pipes it directly to turbine generators, SolarReserve’s heats a molten mixture of nitrate salts that can be stored in insulated tanks and withdrawn on demand to run the plant’s steam generators and turbine when electricity is most valuable. Smith expects that NV Energy, the Las Vegas–based utility contracted to buy Crescent Dunes’ output, will want it mostly during the utility’s unusually late demand peak, which the Vegas Strip’s nightlife routinely stretches toward midnight.

More here: http://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/.Vn2n7mIpIGA.twitter

[Rod Beauvex]

1. As an aside...

I've wondered just how many alternative energy projects put into place have had an effect on the price of oil, as these projects become More and more numerous.

[wordpix]

2. If big oil has its way, solar will be heavily taxed

To keep dirty expensive, war producing oil competitive.

[tazkcmo]

3. Yes!!!

These stories always brighten my day! Thank you for posting!

[pscot]

4. Biblical

we could use a new god.

[Judi Lynn]

6. Thanks for the new URL. Amazing story! n/t

[Judi Lynn]

7. Never heard this could happen. Wonderful. n/t

[Agnosticsherbet]

8. I've seen this under construction.

It is a cool piece of technology, though it could not be built just anywhere.