Solar Tower of Power: the PlantaSola-10This 11 MW concentrated solar power plant uses a central solar tower of power in which the turbine is housed. Over 600 mirrors concentrate sunlight onto the tower. The mirrors are heliostats, which concentrate the sunlight from the 120 square metre mirror surface into a single beam of light that is directed at the tower. The first image shows how the mirrors are aligned to focus their light onto the tower; the second image is taken at ground level and clearly shows the concentrated sunlight reaching the tower. The effect of mirrors is to heat the air in the receiver at the top of the tower to 680 degrees celsius.
The tower is connected to a steam driven turbine that generates electricity in the same way as fossil fuel power stations, namely by pushing the turbine with super heated steam. The plant differs from other concentrated solar collector plants in that it uses hot air to transfer the collected energy to the power station instead of synthetic oil or water. The hot air is taken to the heat exchanger to produce steam for the turbines. Excess hot air is passed through a heat storage tank filled with ceramic beads. The cooled air is then recycled and sent back to the receiver to maximize energy capture. Planta Solar 10 is the first of a series of concentrated solar power plants planned for Spain. The second, Planta Solar 20, is already under construction. By 2013 the projects are projected to provide a total of 300 MW of electricity at a total cost of 1.2 billion Euros. Have a look at this video of the project:
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