Spanish Solar Power Plant Produces Electricity Around the Clock
A new solar power plant in southern Spain is able to store the sun’s energy into a tank and produce electricity when needed. The plant uses molten salt, which is pumped up to a tower to store energy. Over 2,500 large mirrors around the solar power plant collect energy and beam it into a receiver tower. Although the plant works with government subsidies, the technicians are sure that one day it will be able to compete with power plants that produce energy from fossil fuels.
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Words
- beacon = a light that shines from a tower to warn people or ships
- bullet train = very fast train
- capacity = amount of energy that the power plant can produce
- capture =take, get
- commercial – scale = so big that it can produce enough energy that you can sell it at a reasonable cost
- comparable = like
- competitive = here: to be as good as the others
- conventional = normal, usual
- convert = change
- deliver = send
- disappear = go away
- drop = go down
- generate = produce
- grid = network of electricity wires that connects power stations
- heliostat = a special kind of mirror
- innovation = a new idea or method
- key = important
- loom = comes out
- majority stake = here: the company that invested most of the money
- molten = something that is made into a liquid by heating it
- power plant = building that produces energy or electricity
- provide = give
- receiver tower = a big building that collects the energy
- regardless = it doesn’t matter if
- rotate = to go around itself
- solar = from the sun
- steam = hot gas that water produces when you make it hot
- store = save, until it is needed
- subsidy = money that the government gives in order to make prices lower
- turbine = an engine or motor in which the pressure of liquid or a gas moves a wheel around
- twilight = the time of day when it is starting to become night