Storing solar power
The biggest handicap with solar power was the restriction that it can generate power only when there is sunshine. This meant that expensive solar power plants remained idle for more than half the day. Now, a possible solution to this problem comes in the form of storing energy within molten salts.
The world's second solar power plant to employ such technology — a thermal power plant that concentrates the sun's rays with parabolic mirrors on long, thin tubes filled with the molten salt — opened recently in Syracuse, Sicily. Archimede, developed by the Italian energy giant Enel, can harvest enough heat to generate 5 MW of electricity, day or night, and can store enough energy to keep producing power even at night or during cloudy daytime hours. Another plant, Andasol 1, near Granada, Spain, developed by a German solar company, Solar Millennium, AG, has been in operation for more than an year.
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