Impressive Solar Power Plant Manages 24/7 Operation

As the discussion about how our future energy needs will be met continues, Spain’s Gemasolar plant created by Torresol Energy has successfully deployed an effective Solar solution showing that it can perform throughout the evening with a clever solution for energy storage.

The plant consists of Heliostats (Mirrors) arranged and positioned in concentric circles. These mirrors focus the suns rays onto a tower in the middle of the plant which then captures the focused energy, storing some of it as heat in an innovative battery that uses molten salt.

Typically solar plants are only effective during the daylight hours when the sun is powering solar arrays for energy generation. Storing this energy has historically been a problem, as soon as the sun is setting, the energy available drops to zero. The 19.9 MW plant in Spain uses molten salt to transfer and store the surplus energy during the day, this molten salt mixture is said to store 99% of the heat energy allowing the plant to convert that stored energy during the evening hours back into steam which proceeds to drive turbines for energy generation.

The design is quite a sight to look at as is the central tower glowing brightly as it receives the combined output of the heliostats.