What will a Solar Tower power station look like?
The power station will be based on German designed Solar Tower technology. It will look like an enormous greenhouse canopy with a very tall hollow ventilation Tower located at its centre (see artist’s’ impression elsewhere). The sun’s radiation will be collected and trapped under the transparent canopy, creating a massive force of air heated to around 35°C greater than the ambient temperature. The laws of physics will make this air move at 15 metres per second towards the cold air at the top of the Tower located in centre of the canopy. The powerful updraft will force the rising air to pass through large turbines positioned at the base of the Tower. The movement of the hot wind through the turbines will generate up to 200MW of clean, emission free electricity – enough electricity for 200,000 typical Australian homes.
