Seville Solar Station

Everyday almost 6000 times more potential energy than we need reaches our planet at no cost to us. Light energy is an extremely valuable resource in that way. If the technology and infrastructure was in place to harness this energy, we would find ourselves worrying less about issues such as global warming, harvesting of the planets fossil fuels and the issues associated with these processes, such as: extreme weather patterns, natural disasters, loss of diversity in the ecosystem to name just a few. After all there is enough potential energy there for all our foreseeable needs!

The question is, is it viable for us to harness this energy using current technologies or even future technologies and if so at what loss: aesthetics, convenience, social, economic?

In Seville, southern Spain sits a giant 40 story tower, surrounded by shining platters and painted in golden rays of light. Upon first sight, it appears to be some form of magnificent monument or work of art. In fact it’s actually a power plant.

Solar Seville Station

The tower shown above (called the PS10) is only the first stage of Seville’s solar station. The tower sits 300 feet tall and is surrounded by 624 photovoltaic solar panels. This first installation generates enough output to power 60,000 homes (around 11MW of power), however this is highly dependent on variables such as weather conditions and daylight hours. The above image isn’t doctored – The intensity of the light actually illuminates the dust and water vapour in its path!

The setup consists of solar panels which are a 120m2 mixture of mirrors and photovoltaics. These follow the sun throughout the year using heliostats and reflect the energy of the sun to a solar receptor that sits on top of the central tower. Water passes through pipes at the top of the tower and is turned into steam by the heat from the solar receptor. From here the station starts to work a lot more like a conventional power station as the steam generated is put under pressure and used to turn turbines which in turn generate electricity.

Projects dealing with energy issues in ways like the Seville solar station, have the potential to have massive impact upon the way we live.

The problem with harnessing solar energy is you need a lot of space. Using large amounts of land for energy installations to many doesn’t seem like such a good trade off, as we’re so used to high output (both in terms of energy and pollutants) compact power stations which use fossil fuels as an energy source. There's no easy answer as to whether this trade off is worth it, as different societies value things very differently. However if current technologies such as that implemented at Seville were to be further implement across the globe, a lot free space is going to be needed. This land requirement isn't as simple as you might think; you can't place a massive solar station just anywhere, infact location is a key variable when it comes to a stations productivity.

Implementing stations like the one above into the current power grid has its disadvantages as much of the current generated has to be converted to alternating current. In doing this there is around a 7-12% loss in energy output from the solar station.

The project seems to be tackling the issue of aesthetics head on with its ambitious design. Although this issue shouldn’t be a significant one when considering the problems our planet is facing, in our search for answers to our energy problems it is.

Although not so straight forward. The idea of a power source producing zero greenhouse gas immisions certainly does make it's disadvantages seem a little irrelavant.

Plan of Enquiry
There are many similar projects aiming to implement either the same or very similar technology to that found at the Seville station in various geographical locations around the world. I will be conducting further research into these other implementations and varying technologies.

I'm currently in correspondence with people involved in the development of the Seville Solar Station and hope that this will lead to access to further more detailed information relative to my investigations.

I will be further investigating this project using various secondary sources:

-Newspaper and magazine articles from various publications - Although not entirely factual and often without references. When taken with a pinch of salt these sources can provide valuable information or leads towards more accurate sources of information.

-Information available on various websites including:

Many of the above sources are either government funded initiatives or have direct involvement with my subject material and the technology discussed.

-IDAE (Institute for Diversification and Saving of Energy) [Spain]

-Official statistics