Cost
The US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has estimated that by 2020 electricity could be produced from power towers for 5.47 cents per kWh. Companies such as ESolar (backed by Google.org) are continuing development of cheap, low maintenance, mass producible heliostat components that will reduce costs in the near future. ESolar's design uses large numbers of small mirrors (1.14m²), which reduce costs for installing mounting systems such as concrete, steel, drilling & cranes.
Improvements in working fluid systems, such as moving from current two tank (hot/cold) designs to single tank thermocline systems with quartzite thermal fillers and oxygen blankets will improve material efficiency and reduce costs further.
Read more about this topic: Solar Power Tower
Famous quotes containing the word cost:
“The President has paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“It may cost me twenty thousand francs; but for twenty thousand francs, I will have the right to rail against the iniquity of humanity, and to devote to it my eternal hatred.”
—Molière [Jean Baptiste Poquelin] (1622–1673)
“Oh high is the price of parenthood,
And daughters may cost you double.
You dare not forget, as you thought you could,
That youth is a plague and a trouble.”
—Phyllis McGinley (20th century)