https://techsomogro.com/energy-in-the-21st-century-part-4-the-renewables/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=energy-in-the-21st-century-part-4-the-renewables Science, Technology and the Future Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:08:01 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.3 https://techsomogro.com/energy-in-the-21st-century-part-4-the-renewables/#comment-20 Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:08:01 +0000 http://21stcentech.wordpress.com/?p=201#comment-20 Gemasolar is not a solar power plant that uses traditional photovoltaics. Instead it uses thousands of mirrors to focus the light from the sun on a 137-meter central tower which converts the light to heat. The heat is then trapped in a storage medium, molten salt. (See my blog on storage technologies.) The Gemasolar plant supplies power 24 hours per day and has been in operation since July 2011. The heat storage capacity of the molten salt allows the plant to operate overnight and on cloudy days and generates 19.9 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 27,500 homes.

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