Solar Power Players

In Europe, the market for renewable energy is large and growing at an amazing rate. Contributing to this growth along are two companies, E.ON and Abengoa Solar, and their forward thinking solar energy ideas.

In the south of Spain, in Seville, two new solar power plants are underway to help ease the environmental impact of producing electricity. The partnership between E.ON and Abengoa energy will require a total invest 550 million euros into the two solar plants, which are due to be finished in 2011 and 2012 respectively. These two plants will help to supply electricity to 52,000 homes, and will cut upwards of 63,000 tons of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere. The technology utilized by these two solar plants comes in the form of parabolic troughs.

The technology behind these new plants is rather simple. The parabolic trough is a large, curved mirror that sits on the motorized based and follows the movement of the sun throughout the day. The shape of the mirror allows it to gather a large amount of the suns rays, and reflect them to a single point. A receiver tube sits at this point, collecting the solar power through synthetic heat transfer oil. The oil reaches a temperature of 700 degrees (400 C), and is them pumped to a nearby power block. There it is converted to high-pressure steam which pushes a conventional steam turbine engine, thus creating electricity.