July 2, 2007—An update from the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) reports on recent developments in parabolic solar thermal power plants in the US.
- Acciona Energy announced that Nevada Solar One, a 16-megawatt solar thermal power plant near Boulder City, Nevada, is now online. The new facility is the largest of its type to be built in the world since 1991, reports EERE, although a 1-megawatt solar thermal plant was built in Arizona last year. The Nevada Solar One plant consists of 47 miles of trough-shaped parabolic mirrors arranged in a grid and will produce enough power to supply 15,000 average US homes.
- The California Energy Commission (CEC) announced that it is reviewing the license application for a proposed 563-megawatt power plant near Victorville, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The proposed facility would produce 50 megawatts of power from parabolic troughs but would generate most of its power from natural gas.
- Solel Solar Systems, an Israeli company, announced a deal to sell thousands of parabolic trough systems to FPL Energy, the co-owner and operator of seven large plants in California’s Mojave desert. Solel has a previous deal with FPL Energy to upgrade the receivers at the existing plants, while the new deal will allow for additional power production at those plants.
- DOE’s Sandia National Laboratories has developed a new device to help align the mirrors of parabolic troughs. The device could help parabolic trough plants generate more power.
