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It’s the thing that seems to bother most people whenever solar power is discussed: “What happens at night?” The most sophisticated solar plants have found ways to compensate for the lack of sunlight during the night by coupling solar plants with other energy sources or by storing some energy during the day to be used at night. But now a new power plant developed by Torresol Energy in Spain has claimed to offer once and for all a reliable 24-hour solution to solar energy.
相信大多数人提到太阳能发电厂时第一个疑问便是：“到了晚上怎么办？” 通过与其他种类能源结合或在白天储存部分能源以供晚上使用，最先进的太阳能发电厂已经能够补偿夜晚缺少阳光带来的影响。但现在，一种由位于西班牙的Torresol Energy公司研制的新型发电站号称能够提供一套可靠的24小时运行解决方案。
WIDE ANGLE: SOLAR POWER
广角镜：太阳能
The Gemasolar plant (above) uses hudreds of mirrors to reflect concentrated sunlight toward a central tower, where water is heated to steam, which drives a turbine that produces electricity. This scheme is becoming increasingly more popular than the traditional photovoltaic (PV) cell systems because of lower costs and comparable efficiency. The CSP systems also have the advantage of being easily integrated into existing power plants that already use turbines.
新的Gemasolar发电站（如上图所示）用上百面镜子将阳光聚焦到一个中央高塔上，在那里水被加热变成蒸汽，进而驱动涡轮发电机产生电力。相比起传统的光伏电池组系统，这种新型的设计正越来越受到欢迎，因为它造价低廉且相比较而言更加高效。CSP系统的另一大优势在于它能轻而易举地接入已使用涡轮发电机的发电站。
TOP 10: Best Places to Harness Solar Power : PHOTOS
十大最佳利用太阳能的地方：照片
During the day, energy is stored by heating up large tanks of molten salt composed of a mixture of 60 percent potassium nitrate and 40 percent sodium nitrate. The molten salt is able to retain a very large amount of heat -- enough to drive the plant for 15 hours without sunlight. Although molten salt has been used in other plants to store heat energy, the efficiency achieved by Torresol is new.
白天，能量通过加热庞大容器里的熔融盐保存起来，熔融盐由60%的硝酸钾和40%的硝酸钠组成。熔融盐可以保留大量的热量——足够让发电站在没有阳光的情况下运行15小时。虽然用熔融盐储存热量的技术在别的发电站已经在使用了，但是Torresol将它的效率提升到了一个新的高度。
The plant has a production capacity of 19.9 Megawatts and although this is relatively small as far as power plants go, the fact that the plant runs continuously means that the effective production is comparable to a traditional 50 Megawatt solar power plant.
这座发电站的输出功率为19.9兆瓦，虽然对于发电站而言19.9兆瓦有些寒酸，但鉴于这座发电站能够连续运行，它的有效功率可以与一座传统的50兆瓦太阳能发电站相提并论。
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