World first: Australian solar plant has generated “supercritical” steam that rivals fossil fuels

originally posted by: Soylent Green Is People

originally posted by: darkbake
As for the night time energy, there are capacitors or batteries that can store excess electricity from the day to use at night...

Sure, but the fact that they can only produce the power in times of relatively intense sunlight is certainly a limitation.

Most power plants operate 24/7 in order to produce enough power to keep up with demand. This one obviously cannot do that. Sure -- they could store power when the sun isn't shining, but that isn't doing anything to slake the demand. That's why I say it is a limitation, even if they can store the power that they did produce.

Granted, if the can run turbines cheaply and efficiently, them this is one great way to supplement the demand for energy without burning fossil fuels in the process -- but it would only be a supplement, considering it only produces energy when (and where) it is sunny.

Sure it is a supplement, but it turns out that often the highest usage is in the late afternoon-evening after a very hot day, so storing solar power (generated most around noon or shortly thereafter) for only a few hours can be quite valuable.