Gemasolar power plant in Spain has been inaugurated

It was inaugurated on October 4, Gemasolar giant solar power plant in Andalusia, Spain region, which will be able to produce electricity 24 hours for 25,000 families, thanks to the molten salt to be heated over 500 degrees. A cutting-edge facility.

To the point where experts say that the sun will warm even in Seville at night. The facility will be able to produce electricity 24 hours for 25,000 families. Gemasolar extends over an area as large as 260 football fields and is located along the highway that connects Seville to Cordoba. Santiago Arias, technical director of the center, points out that it is a solar power plant is unique in the world, who also works when the sun has set. Technically it is called a thermal power concentration. No photovoltaic panels that convert sunlight power in watts. And yet, a forest of giant panels around the tower, which is right in the center of the structure. About 2,650 mirrors that send rays of the sun towards the top of the lighthouse.

To maximize the concentration of solar energy, each of the heliostats of 110 square meters is scheduled to follow the course of the sun. Bombarded with thousands of solar beams, on top of the tower, the molten salt (or, where appropriate, a cocktail of potassium nitrate and sodium nitrate) is brought to 565 degrees Celsius. Within a heat exchanger where water circulates, as in a nuclear power plant, the extreme heat of the salt produces steam that drives a typical turbine, supplied by Siemens.

During this period, from 19.30, the sun heats up the tower. But this does not prevent Gemasolar continue to have the turbine running for another 15 hours. The energy focused by the mirrors is such that the salt could in theory even more heat, but then it would take more resistant to high temperatures, although these are more expensive.

For this structure the investment amounted to 250 million euros. Torresol, the company that created and runs the company, belongs to the 60% Spanish company Sener engineering. The rest of the capital (40%) is in the hands of the emirate of Abu Dhabi through the company Masdar, which invests heavily in renewable energy.
Thanks to its continued operation, Gemasolar, with a nominal output of 20 megawatts, would produce 400 megawatt hours a day. That is four times more solar power plant of the future of France, which will be built in Curbans, Provence. The latter, however, will be subject to alternating day-night, and sensitive to the passage of clouds.