PS-20 Solar Tower
Photo Source: veturebeat.com
This week the world’s largest solar tower started to produce electricity. Spain’s PS20 will produce 20MW of electricity, or enough to power 10,000 homes.
The PS20 plant is quite remarkable. 1,255 mirrors direct the sun’s rays into a 541ft. tall structure causing water to boil and create steam to spin a turbine and produce electricity. This is the second tower of its kind to be completed by Spain. The first, PS10, was discussed in a previous article. The solar towers are just a fraction of the planned 300MW complex that will provided power for 300,000 homes in Spain by 2013.
The completion of the PS20 plant brings Spain’s total solar production up to 3,000 megawatts, a close second to Germany, the world leader Germany with 4,000 megawatts. More importantly, the success of these plants is allowing Spanish solar companies to gain a competitive edge in bidding contracts on future projects around the world. Environmentalists and economists agree, and it was reiterated by President Obama today: The country that leads in the development of batteries for plug-in hybrid cars, the technology of large scale renewable energy plants and power transmission will have the strongest economy in the 21st century.