why can’t we use lenses to focus solar rays and make electricity ore heat water more efficiently?
In: Engineering
This is called solar thermal power, where you have a large field full of mirrors focusing the light to heat up molten salt. But if you lookup Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, they’re obsoleted by photovoltaic solar farms that generate more energy on a far cheaper budget. The molten salt advantage is they can still generate power even after sunset, but at that price difference utilities just choose to use other storage technology.
Another study case is Ashalim Power Station, initially, it was two plots consisting of the tallest solar tower in the world and parabolic trough of similar capacity, but later expansion are the cheaper photovoltaic solar farms.
Latest Answers