How does a solar power plant work?

Answer 1

(Another contributor wrote:)

Concentrated Solar Power (PVC) uses hundreds of mirrors to focus the sun's heat onto a central tower where it warms molten salt. This salt stays hot enough all through the night, so day and night it provides steam to, yes, turn turbines to generate electricity.

A:In suitable sunny climates Concentrated Solar Power is efficient, clean (no carbon dioxide emissions) and is already being used successfully in Spain and America. A circle of movable mirrors focus the sun on the top of a central tower. This heats molten salts hot enough to generate electricity immediately and also to store enough hot salts to keep providing electricity overnight.

Initially this is more expensive than another coal-fired power station. But every year the cost of coal rises, the cost of coal transport rises and the carbon dioxide and other pollution emitted becomes more and more intolerable. 20,000 coal miners are killed in mining accidents in China every year. This is an unacceptable price to pay!

In contrast the Solar Tower has no ongoing fuel costs, no carbon dioxide emissions, and little maintenance! Every year it looks better!

A:Concentrated solar power plants (CSP) usually use a series of mirrors to focus the sun's rays on a tower where something like water, or molten salt is heated to several hundred degrees Celsius. This heat then generates electricity by steam turbines.

The three largest CSP plants are:

1. Mohave Desert, California, 354 MW
2. Solnova, Spain, 150 MW
3. Andasol, Spain, 150 MW