The new La Florida solar plant takes Spain's solar output to 432MW, which compares with the US output of 422MW. The plant, at Alvarado, Badajoz, in the west of the country, is a parabolic trough. With this method of collecting solar energy, sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror on to a fluid-filled tube. The heated liquid is then used to heat steam to run the turbines. The mirror rotates during the day to follow the sun's movement. The solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 football pitches) and produces 50MW of power. Protermosolar, the association that represents the solar energy sector, says that within a year another 600MW will have come on-stream and projects that by 2013 solar capacity will have reached 2,500MW. Spain overtakes US with world's biggest solar power station | Environment | guardian.co.uk
Even without co-gen (use of the exhaust heat), these thermal solar farms achieve outstanding yields -- I think close to 50% efficiency. This tech and wind deployed on commercial scale is the future.
Are you thinking about time-shifting production useage ? That really isn't an issue yet, because the output is still only a small fraction of total use.
Nee. I'm talking about storing heat in molten salts and then using that heat after the sun has gone down to continue producing electricity.
Molten salts are brilliant. Cheap (no exotic) materials and they're more efficient than batteries (about 90%). Here's a quick synopsis. and to quickly answer your question...
Using thermal is more efficient than PV, but such facilities by their nature have to be some distance from the cities that consume the energy. Does anybody know what the transmission cost is, as a percent of efficiency? I wouldn't be surprised if it were on the order of 10% or more.
