First Solar Wind Tower in the World to be built in Arizona.
The small Arizona border town of San Luis will be the site of the first Solar Wind Energy Tower installation in the world.
The $1.5 billion project would generate electricity through the use of ambient desert heat that passes through a concrete structure its proponents say would be the tallest in North America.
Solar Wind Energy Tower is buying 640 acres, the tower and its associated facilities will only cover a fraction of that space.
“Besides the tower, there would be a guard house, personnel and administration building, a water retention pond, a maintenance facility and relay stations for the power,” Pickett said. “We expect to be generating on an annualized basis more power than the Hoover Dam currently generates — more than 4 million megawatt hours.”
A series of pumps deliver water to the tower’s injection system at the top where a fine mist is cast across the entire opening. The water introduced by the injection system, Pickett said, then evaporates and is absorbed by hot dry air which has been heated by the sun’s solar rays.
The result is the air becomes cooler, denser and heavier than the outside warmer air, and falls through the cylinder at speeds up to and in excess of 50 miles per hour. This air then is diverted into wind tunnels surrounding the base of the tower where turbines inside the tunnel power generators to produce electricity. Hoover Dam currently generates — more than 4 million megawatt hours.”
“We considered areas of the world where the tower would be most efficient,” he said. “We require very hot and arid areas, such as parts of the Mideast, northern Africa and the U.S. Southwestern desert, which is one of the driest areas in North America.”
Pickett said his company was able to access a decade of weather data gathered by the U.S. Department of Defense for strategic reasons — a database that had hourly data at different elevations — and take that information to build a picture of what happened month to month over a ten year period.
“We then knew how to predict almost exactly what the tower would do in that area, so San Luis became the prime place in North America for the tower,” he said.
:source Inside Tucson Business
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