Spain uses world’s first solar thermal power plant

Do you think your gadget is cool? Have you ever thought how an industrial scale gadget should look like? Spain has one, the word’s first solar thermal power plant. After you read what and how it does, you might get that deja vu feeling and you’re not wrong as one Austin Powers movie has a scene with a typical industrial setup.

The solar power plant is located near Seville, in Spain, and can be described as an architectural landmark, not only an industry marvel. The engineers have constructed a 40 storeys high tower surrounded with 600 mirrors that reflect sun’s rays on top of the tower. Here heat is used to steam water, that in turn powers turbines producing electricity with zero gas emissions making for the perfect environmental friendly power plant.

The solar power plant continues to work for an hour even after sun has set, but in the future engineers hope to improve this period, increasing efficiency and lowering costs. Currently the tower produces 11 Megawatts of energy, enough to power 6000 homes, but the Spanish are installing 1000 more mirrors, hoping to counteract the solar plant’s main problem: the cost of electricity is higher that current "normal" producing methods, three times more expensive.

This is how the word’s first solar thermal power plant works

Everybody believes that the cost problem will dissapear in the near future, as research and development costs will be shared between more plants, but being the first of its kind is good enough for now, given the problems global warming poses right now. A short movie about the solar thermal power plant can be seen here.

Source: Ubergizmo (via BBC NEWS)