The Solar Project

The SOLAR Project consists of the Solar One, Solar Two and Solar Tres solar thermal power plants based in the Mojave Desert, United States and Andalucía, Spain.Solar One/Solar Two have been scrapped since 2009, and Solar Tres is under construction.Solar OneSolar One was a pilot solar-thermal project built in the Mojave Desert just east of Barstow, CA, USA. It was the first test of a large-scale thermal solar power tower plant. Solar One was designed by the Department of Energy (DOE) (led by Sandia National Laboratories in Livermore, California), Southern California Edison, LA Dept of Water and Power, and California Energy Commission. It was located in Daggett, CA, about 10mi east of Barstow.Solar One's method of collecting energy was based on concentrating the sun's energy onto a common focal point to produce heat to run a steam turbine generator. It had hundreds of large mirror assemblies, or heliostats, that track the sun, reflecting the solar energy onto a tower where a black receiver absorbed the heat. High-temperature heat transfer fluid was used to carry the energy to a boiler on the ground where the steam was used to spin a series of turbines, much like a traditional power plant.In the late 1970s, a competition was held by the DoE to obtain the best heliostat design for the project. Several promising designs were selected and prototypes were built and shipped to the area for testing. Trade-offs involved simplicity of construction to minimize costs for high-volume manufacturing versus the need for a reliable, bi-directional tracking system that could maintain focus on the tower. Rigidity of the structure was a major concern in terms of wind load resistance and durability, but shading of the mirrors by support structures was to be avoided.