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1. Greg Egan (gregegansf@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 16:13:50 UTC Greg Egan

   Concentrated solar photovoltaic, but the water that cools the PV modules is retained as a heat store, and some of the electricity drives a chiller to cool a second mass of water. The temperature difference drives a turbine, for ~17hrs of stored power.

   https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-08-31/raygen-resources-opens-new-solar-and-thermal-power-plant-carwarp/102798366

   • Santa Claes 🇸🇪🇭🇰🎅 likes this.
   • John Carlos Baez (johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 16:13:53 UTC John Carlos Baez

     in reply to

     • waldi

     @waldi @gregeganSF - it sounds like it's not photovoltaic, i.e. does not use solar cells that convert light directly into electricity:

     "Unlike a traditional solar array, the Carwarp project uses an array of mirrors which are arranged to face a tower.

     Sunlight is concentrated at the top of the tower, heating up the solar modules that turns around a third of the captured sunlight into electricity."

   • waldi (waldi@chaos.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 16:13:58 UTC waldi

     in reply to

     @gregeganSF The linked article clearly talks about mirrors and nowhere about photovoltaic.

   • waldi (waldi@chaos.social)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 16:13:59 UTC waldi

     in reply to

     @gregeganSF Nothing on this installation is photovoltaic. This is a traditional sun to really hot matter conversion.

   • Greg Egan (gregegansf@mathstodon.xyz)'s status on Sunday, 10-Sep-2023 16:13:59 UTC Greg Egan

     in reply to

     • waldi

     @waldi The people who built it will be surprised to learn that you know better than them, and that their photovoltaic modules are figments of their imagination.