The calculations I came out with show this to be way less effective in every way compared to other proven solar technologies. Something that would be ~30X more efficient with >40X cost per KW/h improvement would be a solar power trough and solar power tower (molten salt based storage) solution. So instead of 200 MW continuous for >$500 Million you would have ~6 GW continuous for ~$400 Million. Here it is by the numbers:
1 acre = 4,074 m2. Solar radiation at earth's orbit = 1376 W/m2. Solar radiation hitting southern US ~= 1,000 W/m2.
If 8 hours usable peek sunlight and 200 MW daily average then peek collection is 600 MW so (600 MW / 100,000 MW) = 0.006 or 0.6% efficient. (Terrible!)
A combination of solar power troughs (for day light and some evening power) and solar power towers utilizing cheep molten salt storage (for round the clock power) utilizing some of the more effective power conversion technologies should be able to achieve something in the ball park of 20% efficient. (Very practicle.) The real kicker are these things will be using relatively simple, mass producable parts making them a lot easier and cheeper to build and maintain than giant monolithic towers.
If you want examples go to sandia.gov and look up solar power troughs and solar power towers or just wander out to Cramer Jnct., CA and Barstow, CA. Unfortunately in 2001 with a change in political powers Solar 2 got dismantled, but the solar power troughs at Cramer Jnct. were still there and in use the last I checked.
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The calculations I came out with show this to be way less effective in every way compared to other proven solar technologies. Something that would be ~30X more efficient with >40X cost per KW/h improvement would be a solar power trough and solar power tower (molten salt based storage) solution. So instead of 200 MW continuous for >$500 Million you would have ~6 GW continuous for ~$400 Million. Here it is by the numbers:
1 acre = 4,074 m2.
Solar radiation at earth's orbit = 1376 W/m2.
Solar radiation hitting southern US ~= 1,000 W/m2.
So 25,000 acre * (4,074 m2 / 1 acre) * (~1,000 W/m2) ~= 100,000,000,000 Watts (100 GW).
If 8 hours usable peek sunlight and 200 MW daily average then peek collection is 600 MW so (600 MW / 100,000 MW) = 0.006 or 0.6% efficient. (Terrible!)
A combination of solar power troughs (for day light and some evening power) and solar power towers utilizing cheep molten salt storage (for round the clock power) utilizing some of the more effective power conversion technologies should be able to achieve something in the ball park of 20% efficient. (Very practicle.) The real kicker are these things will be using relatively simple, mass producable parts making them a lot easier and cheeper to build and maintain than giant monolithic towers.
If you want examples go to sandia.gov and look up solar power troughs and solar power towers or just wander out to Cramer Jnct., CA and Barstow, CA. Unfortunately in 2001 with a change in political powers Solar 2 got dismantled, but the solar power troughs at Cramer Jnct. were still there and in use the last I checked.