Largest concentrated solar Solana thermal plant in Arizona

Savings from oil and coal importation

 

From Clean Technica

We Filipinos like "pinaka" and here is a "pinaka"  - largest solar thermal plant to go on line in Arizona - 280 mW Solana constructed by Abenogoa group of Spain.  According to Don Brandt, the president of APS, the local utility company, said this development is towards making Arizona the solar capital of America.

The Solana plant is CSP (Concentrated Solar Plant) and colllects suns energy like a sunflower via 2,700 parabolic mirrors to focus on pipes containing sythetic oil heating it to 735F to  create steam that to power turbines.  What makes the plant unique is its storage capacity.The said plant has 6 hours storage capacity to generate steam at night

 For storage it has 6 pairs of cold and hot tanks that can store 125,000 metric tons of molten salt heated at 530 degrees Fahrenheit.  When the sun goes down, the synthetic fluid is routed through the salt to continuously create the steam.

                   




                                    
Images of the Solana CSP