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Stirling Energy is poised to build the world’s largest – and most innovative – energy farm, thanks to a deal with SoCal Edison
For 20 years, the utility will buy all the electricity that Stirling can generate at a 500-megawatt (MW) solar-energy farm near Victorville. Previously, the most ambitious plan for solar power was the 12-MW Solarpark Gut Erlasse, near Arnstein, Germany.
What will sprout on Stirling Energy’s 4,500-acre desert farm? Thousands of giant dish-shaped mirrors. Each 37-foot-diameter dish will track the sun and focus its heat rays on an oil-barrel-size contraption suspended in front, like the antenna on a satellite-TV dish. Inside the barrel, the heat will be harnessed to drive a small, 25-kilowatt power generator. If local power lines can be upgraded to handle even more juice, Stirling Energy could enlarge its farm to 850 MW, and SoCal Edison would take all of that, too. …
Nice to see this happening in the US. I Just wanted to share it.
Lots of space out there for solar plants. There’s one between Barstow and Daggett. IIRC, it was ‘experimental’. I think it’s still in operation, but it may not be. I don’t recall.
Anyway, I agree that it’s good to see another one being built.