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Source: >> Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt
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May 02, 2007
Making Electricity with Mirrors and the Sun
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Technology from the German Aerospace Center in Stuttgart enables the world's first solar tower power plant
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The Institute for Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Stuttgart helped develop the technology for a solar tower power plant. To date it is the only such plant in the world that is operated commercially.
This solar power plant located near Seville in Spain operates using a receiver developed by the Stuttgart DLR called a saturated steam cavity receiver. It is installed in a 100 meter high tower surrounded by 624 heliostats (mirrors), each with a surface of 121 qm. They reflect the sun's rays onto the receiver, allowing up to 1,000 degrees C of heat to accumulate that ultimately becomes electricity.
This development from the Stuttgart DLR makes it possible for the new solar tower power plant to produce 23 gigawatt hours of electricity a year - enough to provide 6,000 households with energy. These scientists are currently working on making an improved receiver that they hope to install in an additional solar tower power plant soon.
One of the advantages of a solar tower power plant is that it can withstand higher temperatures than solar thermal power plants have been able to withstand in the past. They are also the technological basis for producing solar fuels – like for example hydrogen - without emitting any CO2 in the process.
www.dlr.de/stuttgart
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