Solar power for every application

Some news of a big purchase this week, seems the world’s largest nuclear plant builder, Areva SA, is diversifying into solar power with the aim of becoming an industry leader, as it acquires U.S.-based solar thermal player Ausra.

Well I thought that is an interesting  concept to wind down my nuclear plant and replace it with Solar?  So I spent some time researching  Ausra, and what they have been doing. They spent their efforts on developing thermal energy in the form of steam from Solar plants rather than the more common approach of photovoltaic where the solar energy is converted into electricity.

Working through some more information it looks like Areva are embarking on a very interesting concept, it looks like they plan to bolt on their nearly acquired solar plants to nuclear and coal-burning power plants. What this should mean is these plants can reduce their carbon emissions or nuclear spend during the daylight hours (when power usage is at its peak). For many power generators this will allow them to more easily meet there requirements to have a proportion of their power generated by cleaner methods.  The other major factor in this play is that it allows the current power companies to eek out more life from their steam driven power generators, that these companies have already invested in. Sounds like this would be a pretty easy sell if you can produce enough steam from the solar components.

This entry was posted on February 20, 2010 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Solar power. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.