Solar power plants represent another way to generate electricity from solar energy. They function in a similar fashion to regular power plants except they use concentrated sunlight—instead of fossil fuels--to generate heat to boil water to drive steam turbines.

MIRRORS: The solar field consists of specially designed solar collectors that use mirrors to gather and focus sunlight. The curved surface of the mirror concentrates the light towards a focal point. At that point, the concentrated light creates heat, or thermal energy.

HEAT: Pipes passing through the focal point carry fluid. The heat drives up the temperature of the fluid. The pipes circulate the hot fluid to a steam generator where the heat of the fluid is transferred to water. The water becomes steam.

STEAM TURBINE: The force of the steam drives the rotation of the turbine. The rotating turbine transfers energy to the generator. That energy is translated into electricity in the generator and sent to the electrical grid for use by the public.