Dubai to build world’s largest solar power plant

Photo taken from the Ivanpah solar power plant website. Dubai’s planned solar power plant will be following a similar design.

Leave it to Dubai to always think big as it has approved the construction of the world’s largest concentrated solar power plant (CSP).

The power plant will produce an estimated 1,000 megawatts of power by 2020 and eventually 5,000 MW by 2030. Similar power plants currently in operation in California and Morocco pale in comparison, able to produce only up to 580 MW of energy.

According to a report on Gizmodo, the Dubai Water and Electricity Authority (DEWA) has chosen a spot within the Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park for its new project. The finished power plant will have five facilities, the first of which is scheduled to be completed in 2020 or 2021.

The difference between a concentrated solar power plant and the more traditional photovoltaic solar panels is the manner by which the energy is harnessed from the sun. A CSP uses a large array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto the top of a tower. This creates tremendous amounts of heat used to drive a steam turbine connected to a more traditional electrical power generator.

The advantage of this system is its ability to store heat that enables the continuous production of energy even after sundown. Alfred Bayle