Tracking the Sun: Concentrating Solar Power Faces Bright Future

 Nevada Solar One is the largest concentrating solar power plant to be built in 15 years.

The sun sits high over the Nevada desert in the Eldorado Valley, gleaming off the upside down rows of mirrored parabolic trough collectors at the Nevada Solar One power plant. Gilbert Cohen, senior vice president of Acciona Solar, stands beneath one of the collectors and points to the mountains in the horizon.

“Because of the track record [the parabolic trough industry] had in southern California with the 354 megawatts (MW) operating — and actually improving in performance — I think you’re seeing the financial institutions more willing to embrace trough technology because it’s proven and the risks are less.”

–Thomas Rueckert, U.S. DOE, Program Manager for CSP Managment
“When the sun rises and gets above 10 degrees, the system will start tracking and we stay with it all day,” he says.

That means 180,000 parabolic trough collectors controlled by 760 trackers moving flawlessly in concert, following the sun’s path and collecting the heat to make clean electricity. That’s the beauty of concentrating solar power (CSP), also known as solar thermal.

At 64 megawatts (MW) of generation capacity, Nevada Solar One is the largest CSP plant to be built in 15 years. While the plant won’t come online until April, its construction marks the revival of an industry that has seen almost no market growth in over a decade.
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