CSP-Beam Down Tower
The Beam Down Tower When "beam-down" solar power the first thing that popped to mind was a Japanese plan which would involve solar panels in space which would generate power which would be transmitted to the Earth's surface via microwaves. This next post isn't about that, it is still about scientists in Japan and it is about solar, but that's pretty much where the similarities stop. Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology are reporting that they have developed a new Beam-Down solar thermal technology which they say could reduce the cost of solar thermal power. So how does this differ from your garden variety solar thermal power plant? image: SENER Sunlight Bounced Twice This new method works somewhat like solar thermal systems which use sun-tracking mirrors (heliostats) to bounce sunlight onto a central tower to heat a liquid which is used to generate power. The difference is that instead of the light being bounced directly onto the tower, ...