Sunflowers inspire improved solar Power Plant
Published January 12, 2012 | 
The well-tuned geometry of the florets on the face of the sunflower mind has inspired an improved layout for mirrors utilized to concentrate sun and generate electricity, granting to new research.
The sunflower-inspired layout could reduce the footprint of concentrating solar power (CSP) floras by virtually 20 percent, which could exist a boon for a technology that’s limited, in part, by its massive nation requirements.
CSP floras use arrays of giant mirrors, each the size of half a tennis court, to beam the sun’s rays up to heat a tube of fluid in the peak of a tower. This hot fluid drives steam turbines that generate electricity.
In the traditional layout, the mirrors are arranged in rows of circles that ripple away from the key tower. Some, such equally the Spain’s Gemsolar power-generating array, take up 185 acres. That plant, when consummate in 2013, will render power for nearly 25,000 homes.
