Huge Solar Tower to Power Las Vegas at Night

A developer of large-scale solar powered projects has announced that it has just completed the central piece in the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project. SolarReserve is currently running the project that is hoped to be able to provide power amounting to 110 megawatts with an additional 10 hours of storage time to over 75,000 homes in Las Vegas. The central piece as pictured above is a tower at the staggering height of 540 ft.

Over the course of the project construction from here on in, a massive field riddled with 10,000 sun-tracking mirrors the same size as billboards will be built around the circumference of the tower. These mirrors called heliostats will reflect sunlight on a 100ft receiver which will be placed at the top of the tower. The tower will be using a molten salt system to store the energy developed from the sunlight. According to SolarReserve, the project will spend over $10 million a year in salaries and costs for the general operation along with other endeavors. The project is touted to be completed in late 2013. If you would like to learn more about this initiative, do visit SolarReserve here.

Pradeep Chandrasekaran
Categories: Web
Tags: Solar