The World’s
Largest Solar Plant Is Producing Electricity Here in the U.S.
Something
really cool happened last month. The world’s largest solar plant started
producing electricity. Located near the California/Nevada border, it is now
supplying electric power to 140,000 California homes.
The Ivanpah Solar Electric
Generating System is
jointly owned by NRG Energy, BrightSource Energy and Google. It covers nearly 5
square miles of federal land and consists of 300,000 computer controlled
mirrors that are 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. The mirrors focus the
sun’s light to the top of 450-foot towers, where water is converted to steam,
which powers turbines and voila! You’ve got energy from the world’s largest
solar plant.
The
Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System is now operational and delivering
solar electricity to California customers. At full capacity, the facility’s
trio of 450-foot high towers produces a gross total of 392 megawatts (MW) of
solar power, enough electricity to provide 140,000 California homes with clean
energy and avoid 400,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, equal to
removing 72,000 vehicles off the road.
Ivanpah, which accounts for nearly 30 percent of all solar thermal
energy currently operational in the US, is the largest solar project of its
kind in the world. The project is the first to use BrightSource’s innovative
solar power tower technology to produce electricity, which includes 173,500
heliostats that follow the sun’s trajectory, solar field integration software
and a solar receiver steam generator.
Since breaking ground in October 2010, the project has created
thousands of jobs and, at the peak of construction, employed nearly 3,000 site
workers who completed more than 8.35 million man-hours. A total of
approximately $650 million in salaries for construction and operations is
expected to be paid over the next 30 years.
It truly is an incredible sight! Take a look at the
future.
Ann Werner is a blogger
and the author of CRAZY and Dreams and Nightmares. You
can view her work at ARK Stories. Visit
her on Twitter @MsWerner and Facebook