Europe's first concentrating solar plant to light up Seville.(EYE ON EARTH)(Brief article)

Spain is now home to Europe's first commercial concentrating solar power plant, an 11-megawatt facility located in the municipality of Sanlucar la Mayor, 25 kilometers west of Seville. The facility is the first in a series of planned solar plants for the area that will together produce more than 300 megawatts of power by 2013. Once completed, the entire platform will provide enough electricity to meet all of Seville's energy needs--equivalent to the consumption of some 180,000 homes--and prevent the release of more than 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide each year.

The power plant, known as PS10, was inaugurated in March at an event attended by government officials and representatives of Abengoa, the giant Spanish energy company whose affiliate, Solucar, built the facility. PS10 uses 624 movable mirrors, each with a surface area of 120 square meters, to concentrate rays on the top of a 115-meter tower. There, solar receivers and a steam ...