WORLD’S BIGGEST SOLAR POWER TOWER ON LINE IN CA DESERT

Ivanpah, World’s Largest Solar Thermal Plant, Is Online

February 13, 2014 (EarthTechling)

“…[NRG Energy announced the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Station is delivering solar electricity to California customers...The [world’s biggest] concentrating solar thermal power plant…covers some five square miles of the Mojave Desert…[It] consists of three 450-foot-tall towers surrounded by a total of 173,500…garage-door-sized pairs of mirrors [called heliostats] that pivot and tilt to track the sun, focusing energy on boilers atop the towers where water is heated to produce steam that is used to turn turbines and produce up to 392 gross megawatts of power…[It’s a big achievement for] BrightSource Energy, the technology company; NRG, the huge power generation and retail electricity company; Google, an investor to the tune of $168 million; and Bechtel, which did the construction – and for the Obama administration and U.S. taxpayers…The $2.2 billion project was aided by a $1.6 billion U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee…[The project could still have glitches and there will be] carping about the cost…[Ivanpah uses the amount of] water a nearby golf course uses to keep [two holes] green…[Unlike the U.S.-backed, parabolic-trough Solana Generating Station, now on line in Arizona, and the Crescent Dunes project due later this year in Nevada, Ivanpah does not have storage]…But the bigger issue in the long run might be…the risk to birds presented by Ivanpah’s concentrated solar radiation...” click here for more

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