The government of South Australia has recently announced that building the world’s largest single-tower solar thermal plant. They revealed that a California-based solar tech company, SolarReserve will develop it.
Scientists actually want to develop this project named Aurora, as part of the Rice Solar Energy Project in California. Once developed, this single-tower solar thermal plant will focus solar energy onto a central tower.
The plant originally uses molten salt technology to store that energy as heat. By using this, the plant could efficiently provide 1,100 megawatts of energy storage capacity, which equates to eight hours of full load storage. Using molten sea salt technology generate electricity even when sunlight is shining down.
The Aurora project has the capacity to benefit 90,000 homes. It is required to have the capacity to take into account around five percent of South Australia’s aggregate vitality needs.
There are two or three other giant solar thermal facilities around the globe, but none have as substantial a solitary tower control yield as this proposed Aurora office in Australia.
This single-tower solar thermal plant called Aurora Solar project will commence development one year from now. It would have liked to be prepared to deliver power by 2020.
Mr. Weatherill said, “this project will deliver more than 700 jobs, with requirements for local workers. It would transform the energy market in SA and be a flagship project for the entire nation.”
Senator Xenophon said, “This will make a difference in the South Australia energy market. It will secure the grid and mean more baseload power than intermittent power. It would lead to more stable energy in the market, which would lead to lower power prices.”
Key Features of this Largest Single-Tower Solar Thermal Plant:
- 150-megawatt solar thermal power with eight hours of storage
- Plant will deliver 495-gigawatt hours of power annually, or 5 per cent of SA’s energy needs
- Equivalent to powering more than 90,000 homes
- Located 30 kilometers north of Port Augusta
