Morocco's Solar Power Mega-Project (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Morocco, located along the northwestern African coast, is in prime position to take advantage of solar technology, and they've committed to one of the biggest such projects in the world. The city of Ouarzazate will host "a complex of four linked solar mega-plants that, alongside hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco's electricity from renewables by 2020." It will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. "The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that are now familiar on roofs the world over, but it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down." The first phase of the project, called Noor 1, comprises 500,000 solar mirrors that track the sun throughout the day, with a maximum capacity of 160MW. When the full project finishes, it will be able to generate up to 580MW. "Each parabolic mirror is 12 meters high and focused on a steel pipeline carrying a 'heat transfer solution' (HTF) that is warmed to 393C as it snakes along the trough before coiling into a heat engine. There, it is mixed with water to create steam that turns energy-generating turbines."

Comments

Re:a nice start, but...

[thePig]

Not that they wouldn't have thought about it, but wouldn't it have been better in that case to make it 50:50 PV:Solar Thermal or so?
The PV provides the electricity for the day time use, while Solar Thermal just stores the energy in molten salt. In the night, electricity is taken from the molten salt.
Isn't the price difference per watt is so high that it makes sense to have PV along with it?