I do not like the Kingdom, but concentrated solar thermal power is pretty cool. I think the tower design is prettier, but the GlassPoint website makes a good case for their enclosed trough design.
Honestly this seems pretty cool. Saudis realizing fossil fuels aren’t an unlimited resource so they use the other thing they have, desert…. Lots of uninterrupted solar energy.
When complete, the 1,500-megawatt facility
What’s that? 1.5 Gigawatts? Doc’s DeLorean, took 1.21 gigawatts (GW) of power to travel through time years ago. Count me as unimpressed.
In the current list [yes photovoltaic and not thermal], that would theoretically make it the 8th largest solar power plant in the world, and this plant is meant to power an aluminum mill
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations
Surprising, I thought thermal solar power was going the way of the dodo.
No, it is practical where it gets too hot for photovoltaic
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