The Department of Energy has announced substantive backing in the form of loan guarantees for an exciting concentrated solar power (CSP) project in California. The plant will generate 400 MW of electricity using the same “power tower” approach I saw when we were on vacation in Spain this past August. For backing this project, I can almost forgive Stephen Chu and Barack Obama for enabling more nuclear boondoggles by guaranteeing billions in loans for power plants. (But not quite. Not incidentally, a friend who is very much an energy industry insider indicated the other night that he thought that new nuclear plants wouldn’t get built in the US. Why? The financing is not there. And he’s a fan of nuclear power. This further eases my distress at the DOE loan guarantees for nukes.)
This article from today’s edition of DOE’s “EERE Network News” highlights this power tower technology and financing breakthrough for the US. The BrightSource solar power complex in Ivanpah, CA, will use thousands of flat mirrors, or “heliostats,” to concentrate the sun’s heat onto a receiver mounted at the top of a tower, water is boiled into steam by the heat, the steam drives a turbine, et voilà: lots of juice. Enough for 140,000 California homes.
Another excellent bet is on track further south in California. This “EERE Network News” article looks at a 750 MW proposal that would put 42,000 dish/Stirling systems, called SunCatchers, on 10 square miles of land in the desert. SunCatchers are also a CSP technology. Tessera Solar, the developer, has ambitious plans for California and elsewhere in the world.
There are other CSP projects coming to fruition in California, Spain and elsewhere. The Desertec initiative for North Africa and the Middle East is particularly exciting. If we’re smart, we will exponentially increase our willingness to exploit the world’s solar hotspots for power.