Sicily has just announced the creation of the world’s first Molten Salt Solar Plant. The purpose of this innovative plant is to produce power from the sun, but at night-time.
The road to achieve such a ground breaking achievement as the Molten Salt Solar Plant was long and confusing one, similar to its name. However, because of its creation, more options have become available to feed the world’s growing need for power.
Since molten salt is able to reach very high temperatures (over one thousand degrees Fahrenheit) in addition to its ability to hold more heat than the synthetic oil used in other CSP (concentrated solar plant) plants, the plant is able to continue to produce electricity even after the sun has set.
While photovoltaic solar panels work by directly producing electricity from sunlight, rendering them inefficient at night. CSP plants, on the other hand, use mirrors to concentrate sunlight and produce high temperatures in order to drive a turbine to generate electricity. Although CSP plants have been in existence for many years, the Archimede plant in Sicily is the first instance of a facility that uses molten salt as the collection medium.
The Archimede plant has a capacity of five megawatts with a field of 30,000 square meters of mirrors and more than three miles of heat collecting piping for the molten salt. The overall cost to build such an avant-garde plant is staggering. The plant took over 60 million Euros to build, which proves that the costs to find greener technology certainly doesn’t come cheap.
From solar powered vehicles to using molten salt and mirrors, the world is constantly striving to fulfill its needs for more power and more energy. The Molten Salt Solar Plant is hoping to help address the energy crisis, in leaps and bounds. This goes to show you that some of the world’s most likely problems, yield the most unlikely answers. Have YOU helped save the world today?
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