Improving the Performance of Solar Thermal Electrical Power

[profgoose]

The US Department of Energy granted a US$1.37 billion loan guarantee to Brightsource Energy last week which could help clear the way for over 15 gigawatts of solar thermal power projects in California. Brightsource built a pilot plant in Israel to prove their technology and has tested it over the past 18 months. Their flagship Ivanpah project in California got a big boost when construction giant Bechtel agreed to build the plant.

Solar thermal is a way of harnessing the largest source of energy available to us, so in this post I'll have a look at the upswing in interest in the use of this technology for electricity generation in recent years and look at some of the approaches being pursued to make it economically competitive with coal fired power generation.

http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/6279