Stirling Engines Driven by Solar Energy (image from Salt River Project)

Its hard to imagine a better place for large scale solar power generation!  Last week, a new solar array in Arizona was launched using a unique concentrating solar power system: the SunCatcher from Stirling Energy Systems.

Sixty giant parabolic dishes – also known as solar collectors – concentrate solar heat at a hydrogen-filled piston, which drives a Stirling engine, generating electricity.  The dishes are covered with mirrors and track the movement of the sun across the sky.

The Peoria, AZ-based system, installed by Tessera Solar, will generate up to 1.5 megawatts (MW) of solar energy.

Just imagine the possibilities:

The new solar array in Arizona is perhaps but a drop in the renewable energy bucket of Tessera Solar.  The company has contracts to install over 1,500 megawatts of large-scale solar power generation in California and Texas.

Its SunCatcher technology is believed to deliver electricity more efficiently and with less use of precious water resources than other concentrating solar power systems.