Arizona Public Service Announces 280 MW CSP Plant

Arizona Public Service Co. (APS) has announced plans for one of the world’s largest solar facilities – a 280-megawatt (MW) concentrating solar power (CSP) plant – to be built 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, near Gila Bend, AZ. Called the Solana Generating System, the new facility will be built by Abengoa Solar and is expected to begin producing power in 2011. It will be among the largest solar power plants in the world, producing enough power at full capacity to serve 70,000 households, and it will also have the ability to store energy, allowing power production to continue into the evening. The facility will use miles of parabolic trough-shaped mirrors to capture the sun’s heat and focus it upon a length of "absorber" tubing. A fluid passed through the tubing collects the sun’s heat, and the hot fluid is used to boil water to steam, which then spins a turbine to produce electricity. See the press releases from APS and Abengoa Solar and Abengoa Solar’s Power Tower Web page.

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Source: SolarNation