The Solar DIY Blog

About Acciona’s Nevada Solar One:

Concentrating Solar Power delivers a win-win solution for all involved: the environment, communities, utilities, and consumers. Its use promotes economic growth, ecological balance and social progress.

Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Technology:
Innovation continues to reduce the cost of concentrating solar power. The parabolic trough technology used in Acciona’s Nevada Solar One plant represents a major renewable energy success story of the past two decades and has the potential to compete directly with conventional fossil fuel powered technologies.

Acciona’s 400-acre, 64 MW Nevada Solar One plant utilizes proprietary tracking technology to track the sun’s location and concentrate its rays during peak demand hours. The plant employs 760 parabolic concentrators with more than 182,000 mirrors that concentrate the sun’s rays onto more than 18,240 receiver tubes located on their focal line. Fluid that heats up to 735°F flows through these tubes and is used to produce steam that drives a conventional turbine, which is connected to a generator that produces electricity. The plant produces enough energy to power more than 14,000 households annually. Acciona plans to continue to invest in CSP plants both in the United States
and Spain.

About the Plant:
Building on its corporate mission to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of sustainable energy, Acciona launched its landmark Nevada Solar One plant in Boulder City, Nevada, in June 2007. Acciona’s Nevada Solar One project is the first CSP plant to be built in the last 17 years, and is the third largest plant of its kind in the world. Designed, built and operated by Acciona Solar Power, the plant demonstrates that concentrating solar power production is possible on a commercial scale.

Acciona’s Nevada Solar One project has made Nevada the largest per capita producer of solar energy in the United States. Nevada Power Company and Sierra Pacific Resources have purchased the plant’s entire electricity production under long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). The PPAs ensure fixed costs for the electricity, making solar power an economically feasible alternative energy. Both companies are purchasing the CSP to comply with Nevada State requirements for the production of electric power from renewable energy sources.

Reliable Clean Energy:
Producing clean energy locally provides construction and manufacturing jobs for more Americans, and counters the devastating effects of global warming. CSP provides stable energy costs and supplies power during peak demand. As demand for peak power continues to increase, Acciona’s Nevada Solar One provides an environmentally friendly, reliable, renewable, utility-scale power solution with near-zero carbon emissions.

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Technorati Tags: acciona, concentrating, csp, energy, environment, green, nevada, one, power, renewable, Solar

Tags: acciona, concentrating, csp, energy, environment, green, nevada, one, power, renewable, Solar