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eSolar

10/12/2009 22:00:00 Pangea

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The simple concept of making renewable energy cost-competitive with fossil fuel energy has driven eSolar to engineer a paradigm shift in CSP technology, providing a cost-effective and scalable solution. eSolar builds an individual 46 MW power unit on 160 acres (64 hectares) and can scale up to 500 MW or larger capacity with multiple units.


	Power Tower Technology A field of sun-tracking heliostats reflects solar heat to a thermal receiver mounted atop a central power tower. The focused heat boils water within the thermal receiver and produces steam. The plant pipes the steam from each thermal receiver and aggregates it at the turbine, powering a power generator. The steam then reverts back to water through cooling, and the process repeats.

	The eSolar Building Block A small and mass-manufactured heliostat is the building block of the eSolar™ solution. eSolar designed the heliostats for deployment in pre-fabricated "heliostat sticks" that can be installed easily with minimal skilled labor. Low wind profile design allows fields of eSolar™ heliostats to be installed faster than any competitive CSP solutions.

	Cost-Based Design Thousands of systematically spaced heliostats combine to form the eSolar™ modular field, comprised of north and south facing mirror sub-fields. Both mirror fields concentrate sunlight to a patented dual-port eSolar™ receiver atop a central tower. The sub-field design optically optimizes the layout to maximize the harvested thermal energy.

	The eSolar Solution A 46 MW eSolar™ power unit consists of sixteen towers (each with its own north-south heliostat sub-field), a turbine generator set, and a steam condenser. 46 MW power units fit on a 1/4 section, or 160 acres. eSolar can construct multiple 46 MW units to scale to any size to meet customer needs.