As many as 17,500 large mirrors — each one 24 feet by 28 feet — will be attached to 12-foot pedestals. The mirrors, called heliostats, will be arrayed in a circle around a 538-foot concrete tower.
Atop the tower will sit a 100-foot receiver filled with 4.4 million gallons of liquid salt. The heliostats will focus the sun on the receiver, heating the salt to 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. The liquefied salt flows through a steam-generating system to drive the turbine and is returned to the receiver to be heated again.
The company will also air-cool the plant, minimizing their water use. So really this is an ideal design which not only can provide baseload power by storing energy in the molten salt, but it also avoids excessive water consumption, which has been the one criticism of solar thermal plants. Very exciting!
