South Africa has marked a major milestone in the construction of the country’s first solar tower project.
Engineering firm Abengoa has announced that it has completed construction of the 205 m-high tower at the Khi Solar One project in Northern Cape Province.
The 50 MW project is part of South Africa’s plans to add over 17 GW of renewable energy capacity to its grid by 2030 and is being built by Abengoa together with partners Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Khi Community Trust.
Khi Solar One consists of a superheated steam solar tower with two hours of thermal storage. It will include an innovative cooling system and be capable of using higher temperatures than other concentrating solar power (CSP) plants thanks to research and development carried out by Abengoa in its research centres and pilot plants.
Khi Solar One is one of two CSP projects being developed in South Africa by Abengoa.
The other, KaXu Solar One, is a 100 MW parabolic trough plant under construction also in Northern Cape.
