eSolar blazes trail, new solar power tower creates 300 jobs

The wind and sun provide compelling sources of renewable energy, but so far the challenge has been finding a way to convert it into usable electricity as efficiently as we convert fossil fuels. So far government subsidies have propped up the industry while it finds new ways to make the technology affordable for the masses.

With that goal in mind, eSolar just claimed a somewhat iconic victory with its just-finished 5 megawatt Sierra SunTower solar power plant. The solar power tower will provide energy to over 4,000 homes in California and makes its home in Lancaster, CA. That’s a modest piece of the population at best, but it certainly paves the way by demonstrating that solar energy can be harnessed efficiently, at least in places where the sun shines more days than not.

It works by reflecting the sun’s light toward a central spot using 24,000 mirrors. eSolar claims this is a leap forward because the Sierra SunTower:

. . . resolves many of the problems that have held back large scale solar in the past including cost, speed of deployment and proximity to existing transmission lines. eSolar uses advanced software algorithms to precisely focus thousands of mirrors on a single point to efficiently harvest the sun's energy and achieve economies of scale with a smaller footprint than anyone else in the business. According to a company press release.

This is a good example of what happens when human determination meets oppressive odds and wins over by using technology. While building the tower, eSolar created 300 jobs as well, and that’s encouraging to the many politicians that are counting on renewable energy to provide new work for a struggling labor market.

Even with more people working to create renewable energy, the difficulty will soon shift away from developing new ways to create electricity, and move toward building out a good way to move that energy. The energy grid in the United States is aging, and may not be a good medium to merge and move electricity from various renewable sources.

Overall, creating energy and routing it to where it’s needed are symbiotic concepts, hopefully Obama and others in power realize that before we end up at another dead end.