Since the early 1860s, when French engineer and inventor Auguste Mouchout used a glass-enclosed cauldron, a polished parabolic dish, and the sun’s heat to produce steam for the first solar steam engine, solar thermal energy (STE) technology has come a long way. Today, an assorted range of technologies is in use or on-line — including parabolic troughs, power towers, and dish/engine systems — and several others are in development. The spate of announcements about solar thermal energy this October and November showed how diverse that range can be and how far those technologies have come.
"Next generation" CSP
Ausra Inc. has launched the Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant in Bakersfield, Calif. — the first solar thermal power plant built in California since FPL Energy put up its nine Solar Energy Generating Systems (SEGs) in the Mojave Desert in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The 5-MW (electric) Kimberlina uses what Ausra calls "next generation" concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, and the company said it is modeled after its Liddell solar thermal facility in New South Wales, Australia.
The plant, consisting of rows of 1,000-foot-long mirrors, was built in seven months by 150 workers (Figure 1). The collector lines will generate up to 25 MW of thermal energy to drive a steam turbine at the adjacent Clean Energy Systems power plant. Ausra said that it had dropped costs by simplifying the system’s design and by mass-producing the mirrors at its factory in Las Vegas, Nev.
1. Cheaper, quicker, stronger. Ausra's Kimberlina Solar Thermal Energy Plant in Bakersfield, Calif., consists of rows of 1,000-foot-long mirrors. The collector lines will generate up to 25 MW of thermal energy to drive a steam turbine at the adjacent Clean Energy Systems power plant to produce 5 MW of electricity. Courtesy: Ausra Inc.
Kimberlina is just a start for solar thermal power in California. Ausra is now developing a 177-MW solar thermal power plant for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in Carrizo Plains, west of Bakersfield. In addition to that plant, the California Energy Commission is reviewing proposals for five large solar thermal plants, including Stirling Energy Systems’ SES Solar Two Project (750 MW), BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Tower (400 MW), Beacon Solar’s 250-MW solar trough project in Kern County, and two hybrid projects that would use solar troughs to produce a total of 112 MW. All six projects would add 1,689 MW to the grid. The federal Bureau of Land Management is also studying requests from developers to build 34 more solar plants in Southern California, all of which would produce some 24,000 MW.
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