A closely held California renewable-energy developer
SolarReserve LLC is proposing the world’s largest solar farm in the Nevada desert, a $5 billion project that would rival the capacity of two nuclear power plants.
The 2-GW Sandstone project will use solar-thermal technology, which is more expensive than standard solar PV power, but also has storage capabilities so it can send power to the grid all night long. Instead of converting sunlight directly into electricity with photovoltaic panels, solar-thermal plants use thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight onto towers topped with vats of molten salt. The salt can reach 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Celsius) and remain hot for as long as 10 hours, creating steam to power generators. SolarReserve has used the technology for a 110-MW power plant that’s in operation in Nevada, and is planning projects in Chile and South Africa.
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The sprawling Nevada project would have 10 towers and cover 15,000 acres. The current biggest solar-thermal plant in the world is the
392-MW Ivanpah facility in California’s Mojave Desert. It has three towers and went into operation in 2014, and doesn’t have storage capabilities.
SolarReserve is eyeing two potential building sites on federal land, both of which will require new transmission lines. The project would be built in stages over seven years and the company is seeking to break ground within three years. SolarReserve plans to market electricity from the sprawling project to California utilities, which under state law must source half their power from renewable sources by 2030.
This is presented to the California market as a more viable option than trying to deploy hundreds of thousands of individual batteries.
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