A new solar thermal power plant that will be the world’s largest to date is scheduled to be built in the 4th quarter of 2010 in the Mohave Desert, an area of the American Southwest that receives one of the highest concentrations insolation in all of the U.S.
Daily Average Insolation of the U.S.
Much criticism regarding harnessing solar energy for electricity has to do with the high up-front costs of photovoltaic cells and the implementation of these solar cells on roofs of houses or buildings. But this solar thermal ‘farm’, which has the potential to provide 9000 Megawatts (that’s right, Mega = 10^6) of energy that can be distributed not only to Arizona, but Nevada, Colorado, and California, is constituted of mainly mirrors reflecting the sun’s light onto a central ‘tower’. In this case, the tower will have ’synthetic oil’ pumped through and heated to approx. 800 degrees, where on its way out it will go into a boiler and make steam to drive a single steam turbine. There is no cost of the photovoltaics (which have been estimated to go for 21.6 cents per kWh, whereas coal/other nonrenewables are going for as low as .04 cents per kWh), and there is potential to harness enough energy for a large portion of the American southwest.
SO although at this point photovoltaics have seemed to be the cutting edge of solar technology, do we have to make way for these Solar Thermal plants, that can generate large amounts of energy at a central distributing locations, that could cost less overall without the need for individual building installations? Not only that, but the ‘green jobs’ coming from this Mohave Desert project alone is 1000+, and we all know that with the current state of the economy, any room for new jobs is vital.
I think we just has to see what happens with this ‘world’s largest’ first before we go jumping to any conclusions, but in my opinion, it looks pretty promising!
