The Archimede plant, Sicily is the first molten salt solar plant in the world to generate electricity at night

Imagine powering your night lamp with the salt and the sun! The sun in the night? Yes, you didn’t read wrong. The Archimede plant at Sicily is just on the verge of opening the first of its kind facility with will use concentrated solar power (CSP) using molten salt as its heat collection medium. Molten salt is known to hit temperatures over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit, it can also generate more heat than synthetic oils generally used in CSP plants, which is why they can produce electricity even after the sun has set for the day. The receiver tubes are designed in such a way that they maximize energy collection along with minimizing emission levels using a vacuum casing to ensure temperatures are high as molten salts tent to solidify at around 425 degrees F.

The plant comes with a 5 megawatt capacity thanks to the 30,000 square meter of mirrors fields over 3 miles long piping to collect heat for the molten salt. The initial cost for the plant is estimated around $77.37million.




[Inhabitat]