Huanshi Finance
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France's Frandroid.com article on July 23: China built a solar power plant that works at night, how it works China has long been in the spotlight for its carbon emissions, and now the country is steadily shifting to greener energy sources. In Gansu Province in northwestern China, a new solar power plant is under construction. When you come to Guazhou County, Gansu Province, you will see two 200-meter-high heat-absorbing towers (pictured) standing in front of you, with nearly 30,000 heliostat mirrors installed under the towers and a lighting area of 800,000 square meters. No, this is not a scene from science fiction, but a new type of Chinese solar power plant under construction.
What is so special about this power station? It's simple: this is the world's first "twin towers and one machine" solar thermal energy storage power station. The principle of operation is not complicated: these heliostats concentrate sunlight into a heat absorber to heat the molten salt, forming a huge thermal cell that drives the steam turbine to generate electricity. It's a really great idea!
You might be thinking, "Okay, the idea of molten salt is cool, but how does it help me to stream at night?" "Imagine that the solar energy collected through the heat absorbing tower during the day is stored in liquid molten salt in the form of heat, up to several hundred degrees Celsius, and even after the sun goes down, it can continue to generate heat, driving the steam turbine to generate electricity, so as to achieve a stable and uninterrupted power output for 24 hours.
Wait, that's not all! The Chinese engineers also had a genius idea: the project adopted a two-tower dual-mirror field design, and each set of mirrors in the middle area of the two mirror fields could be rotated freely to serve any of the heat-absorbing towers according to demand. We all agree that it's a super cool piece of technology.
After it is put into operation at the end of this year, the solar thermal energy storage power station will be used as the basic regulating power supply, forming a multi-energy complementary clean energy base with a total installed capacity of 700,000 kilowatts with surrounding photovoltaic and wind power, and will bundle a steady stream of green electricity to be sent out, with an annual power generation of 1.8 billion kWh - which is equivalent to the annual consumption of about 300,000 European households and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 1.53 million tons.
Even if this power station is impressive, it is only a drop in the "sea of energy demand". China's focus on solar energy is in line with its goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2060. To this end, China has set a special green target to achieve a total installed capacity of more than 1.2 billion kilowatts of wind and solar power by 2030. (Written by Ulrich · Rozel, translated by Dong Ming)
Source: Global Times
Audit|Yang Shasha
Editor|Ma Mengyang
Proofreading|Yang Shuyu