Stories tagged with "concentrating solar thermal power"

Arizona Solar Power Project Calculations

Posted by Robert Rapier on January 7, 2009 - 9:03am
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: arizona, concentrating solar thermal power, solar power [list all tags]

The following guest post was written by Tom Standing, a member of ASPO-USA and a "semi-retired, part-time civil engineer for the City of San Francisco." Here Tom takes on the calculations for a 280 MW solar thermal plant in Arizona that I looked at back in February. My conclusion from that essay was that the electrical capacity of the U.S. could in theory be met on 10,000 square miles of land (with the normal caveats about storage, costs, etc.) Tom peels the onion a few more layers and puts the energy production into perspective.

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Ausra La Vista, Baby

Posted by Big Gav on October 24, 2008 - 8:02am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Topic: Alternative energy
Tags: ausra, concentrating solar power, concentrating solar thermal power, solar power [list all tags]

Expatriate Australian solar power company Ausra was one of the companies that featured heavily in my post on concentrating solar thermal power earlier in the year.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has opened Ausra's first plant, a 5 MW CSP plant at Kimberlina in central California (the first to open in 20 years) which will generate enough electricity during peak hours to power 3,500 homes. Ausra's next plant will be a 177 MW plant nearby in San Luis Obispo County.

The SMH quoted Schwarzenegger as saying "This next generation solar power plant is further evidence that reliable, renewable and pollution-free technology is here to stay, and it will lead to more California homes and businesses powered by sunshine. Not only will this large-scale solar facility generate power to help us meet our renewable energy goals, it will also generate new jobs as California continues to pioneer clean-tech industry".

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