La Florida Power Plant - World's Largest Solar Power Plant

As the fuel prices are soaring around the globe due to the fast declining fossil fuel reserves,a lot of research and development is ongoing in the field of renewable energy technologies so that other sources of energy,that are naturally available in abundance,may be harnessed to compensate for the decline of fossil fuel reserves.As the population of the world is fast growing with passage of time,it is becoming difficult day by day to meet the energy demands of the energy-hungry world.So it has now become inevitable to explore and harness other sources of energy especially renewable energies like wind,solar,hydro and geothermal energies.

Spain is one of the most advanced countries of the world in the field of solar energy technologies.Spain has done a lot of research and development in the field of renewable energies especially the solar energy.It may also be regarded as global leader in renewable energy technologies.It is naturally blessed with a climate which permits unobstructed availability of solar energy almost all the year round.Due to its geographical location and weather conditions,Spain is one of the countries of Europe with more hours of sunshine.Due to the solar energy being abundantly and easily available in Spain,it is investing a lot of resources in utilizing this natural source of energy to meet the energy demands of its population and industry.

Figure 1 : Solar Radiation Map of Spain

(Image via solargis.info)

The La Florida Power Plant of Spain is the world's largest solar power plant.With the opening of this huge solar power generation plant,Spain has overtaken USA as the world's largest solar power generator country in the world.This plant is located in Alvarado, Badajoz,in the west of Spain. According to theguadian,the Spain's total solar power production is equivalent to the output of a nuclear power plant.With the opening of this massive solar power plant,the total solar power generation capacity of Spain has risen to 432MW, which is 10MW higher than that of USA. 

According to theguadian,the La Florida Solar Power Plant is a "parabolic trough".This is a very effective technique of gathering solar energy.With this mechanism the sunlight is reflected off a parabolic mirror onto a tube filled with fluid,thereby converting the liquid into steam.The steam thus produced is used to run turbines for electrical power generation.A tracking mechanism has been built in this system of collecting sunlight, so that the mirror rotates to track the movement of sun during the day.Therefore due to this mechanism the mirror is capable of collecting sunlight to its full capacity from the sun rise to sun set.According to theguadian,the solar farm covers 550,000 square metres (the size of around 77 football pitches) and produces 50MW of power.

Figure 2 : The La Florida Power Plant of Spain

(Image via theguardian)

with an average of 340 days of sunshine a year,the solar energy may prove to be a great source of renewable energy for Spain.Due to its availability almost round the year,the solar energy is one of the most reliable sources of alternate energies for Spain.The sources claim that Spanish government has plans to have its renewable energy share reach 22.7% of its total energy,produced by all the sources,by 2020.This is why the Spanish government is investing a lot of resources in research and development of renewable energies especially the solar energy.


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