Solar Power Towers
We’ve visited a few solar power generation facilities in the past, but here is a roundup of solar power towers – elevated structures surrounded by movable mirrors called heliostats. The mirrors concentrate solar energy onto receptors in the tower where the heat is used to generate steam, which drives turbines to create electricity1. By far the largest location (by generating capacity) is the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility in California’s Mojave Desert, south-west of Las Vegas. An incredible 275,000 mirrors (two per heliostat) are arranged around three 140m-tall (459′) towers at this facility, which opened earlier this year at…