• About
    • Which Energy Mix is this?
  • Climate News Network Archive
  • Contact
Celebrating our 1,000th edition. The climate news you need
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities
SUBSCRIBE
DONATE
No Result
View All Result
The Energy Mix
No Result
View All Result
  FEATURED
Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use June 26, 2022
BREAKING: UN Nature Summit, the ‘Paris Conference for Biodiversity’, Moves to Montreal in December June 19, 2022
‘LET’S SUE BIG OIL’: Legal Team Launches Class Action Campaign for B.C. Municipalities June 17, 2022
‘It Could Have Been Any of Us’, Colleague Says, After Brazil Confirms Murders of Bruno Pereira, Dom Phillips June 17, 2022
Infrastructure Gap a ‘Life and Death’ Matter as Northern Canada Warms June 17, 2022
Next
Prev
Home Climate News Network

Round-the-clock solar power arrives

April 28, 2014
Reading time: 3 minutes
Primary Author: Paul Brown

The Gemasolar plant near Seville: Pointing the way ahead?

The Gemasolar plant near Seville: Pointing the way ahead?

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE With the help of some clever engineering, the power of the Sun can now keep electricity turbines running however cloudy it may be, both night and day. LONDON, 29 April – Solar power’s greatest drawback has always been that it is intermittent and, even in the sunniest climes, peak electricity demand is frequently in the evening when the Sun is going down. The engineering challenge has been to design a system in which enough of the Sun’s heat can be stored to produce full power continuously even on cloudy days – and better still, all night. Many different designs have been tried, but finally a commercial plant in Spain seems to have cracked the problem, and as a result has won an award from a panel of independent judges. The Gemasolar plant near the Spanish city of Seville, built by Torresol Energy, can store enough heat to operate for 18 hours at full capacity without any additional power from the Sun. For many months of the year it can run for 24 hours a day. The plant is small by power station standards, producing 20 megawatts of electricity – enough for 25,000 homes, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 30,000 tonnes a year. It has 2,650 mirrors, known as heliostats, which cover an area of 185 hectares. These train the Sun’s rays onto a central tower, where they heat molten salt to more than double the boiling point of water. More heat is produced than is needed for maximum power, so the surplus is stored in molten salt tanks until it can be used during cloudy periods or at night.

‘Pioneering design’

The award comes from DESERTEC, an organization dedicated to providing energy from arid regions, which had shortlisted four power plants, all able to store power from the Sun and produce electricity at night. It described the Gemasolar plant as “a pioneer for future power stations”. The plant has been working for three years, showing that the technology works effectively summer and winter. The company and DESERTEC both believe that it, or a series of similar plants, can be scaled up to provide much larger populations with renewable energy. There are now 105 similar installations – known as concentrated solar power plants – across the world. One has been operating for 30 years in California, and a large number of newer ones have been built in desert areas of the western United States. Spain is a world leader in the technology, and a number of Middle Eastern desert states have built plants of different designs with molten salt storage capacity. Gemasolar is described as the most successful design so far. The eventual aim of concentrated solar power companies is to build large plants in the deserts of the world and transfer the electricity by super-conducting cables to large centres of population hundreds of miles away.

Fast-growing technology

The most obvious application is from the Sahara desert across the Mediterranean to Europe. Germany is particularly interested in the potential from this source of large-scale clean power. It is quite distinct from photovoltaic panels, which produce electricity directly from sunlight. Here the problem of intermittent power remains, particularly where the weather is very changeable, as in north-west Europe. Despite the difficulties, engineers are working on ways of balancing the output from various solar, wind and biogas plants to keep the grid evenly supplied. The industry is growing at an enormous pace worldwide, because the cost of solar panels has fallen by half and now is far cheaper per watt than nuclear power; and in the US it is only marginally more expensive than coal. Those keen on preventing climate change reaching dangerous levels point out that a one-kilowatt solar system can each month eliminate the burning of approximately 170 pounds of coal, preventing the release of 300 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere, and saving up to 105 gallons of water consumed in cooling towers. – Climate News Network



in Climate News Network

The latest climate news and analysis, direct to your inbox

Subscribe

Related Posts

stux / Pixabay
Air & Marine

Big Seven European Airlines Lag on Reducing Sky-High Emissions: Report

June 13, 2022
72
Ars Electronica/flickr
Solar

Unique ‘Smartflower’ Microgrid to Power Saskatchewan High School

June 13, 2022
150
http://midwestenergynews.com/2013/10/24/as-pipeline-concerns-mount-a-renewed-focus-on-the-great-lakes-enbridge-mackinac-line-5/
Pipelines / Rail Transport

Line 5 Closure Brings Negligible Rise in Gas Prices, Enbridge Consultant Finds

June 10, 2022
203

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.

Trending Stories

David/flickr

U.S. Supreme Court Expected to Gut Emission Controls as Climate Scientists Petition for Plan B

June 26, 2022
580
Graco/Facebook

Soaring Fertilizer Prices Could Deliver ‘Silver Lining’ For Emissions, But Farmers Struggle to Limit Use

June 27, 2022
116
Konrad Summers/Kern West Oil Museum via Wikimedia Commons

Imperial Oil Backs Lithium Recovery Project in Alberta’s Leduc Oilfield

June 26, 2022
97
pxhere

Environmental Racism Bill Passes Second Reading in House of Commons

June 26, 2022
79
stockvault

Animal Agriculture Could Reduce Future Pandemic Risk, UK Researchers Say

June 26, 2022
73
Gustavo Petro Urrego/flickr

Colombia’s President-Elect Has ‘Ambitious’ Plans to Halt Amazon Deforestation

June 26, 2022
67

Recent Posts

Adam E. Moreira/wikimedia commons

Suspend Transit Fares, Not Gas Tax, Climate Advocates Urge Biden

June 26, 2022
55
moerschy / Pixabay

Pandemic Drives Up Support for Climate Action, Pessimism About Elected Leaders

June 26, 2022
27
hellomike/flickr

No Public Input as Canada Finalizes Climate Plan for Airlines

June 27, 2022
37
Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Southeast Asia/wikimedia commons

Japan, Korea Sell Vietnam on Gas Amid Crackdown on Climate Activists

June 26, 2022
22
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_picture_candidates/Barrow_Offshore_Wind_Farm

Global Offshore Wind Pipeline Doubles to 846 Gigawatts

June 26, 2022
38
TAFE SA TONSLEY/Flickr

U.S. Renewables Industries Scramble to Reuse, Recycle Before Waste Volumes Skyrocket

June 26, 2022
63
Next Post
South Asia depends on the monsoon: Changes could have profound consequences

South Asian monsoon is on the change

The Energy Mix

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy and Copyright
  • Cookie Policy

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • Canada
  • UK & Europe
  • Fossil Fuels
  • Ending Emissions
  • Community Climate Finance
  • Clean Electricity Grid
  • Cities & Communities

Copyright 2022 © Smarter Shift Inc. and Energy Mix Productions Inc. All rights reserved.

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}