New rays of hope for solar power's future



As the first commercial concentrating solar power or CSP plant built
in 17 years, Nevada
Solar One marks the reemergence and updating of a decades-old
technology that could
play a large new role in US power production, many observers say.

"Concentrating solar is pretty hot right now," says Mark Mehos,
program manager for
CSP at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden,
Co. "Costs look pretty
good compared to natural gas [power]. Public policy, climate
concern, and new
technology are driving it, too." Spread in military rows across 300
acres of
sun-baked earth, Nevada Solar One's trough-shaped parabolic mirrors
are the
core of this CSP plant - also called a "solar thermal" plant. The
mirrors
focus sunlight onto receiver tubes, heating a fluid that, at 735
degrees F
flows through a heat exchanger to a steam generator that supplies
64 megawatts
of electricity to 14,000 Las Vegas homes.




http://blog.alternate-energy.net/entries/entry_65.php