On the 16th, the reporter learned from Three Gorges Group that the main project of the world's first "twin towers and one unit" solar thermal energy storage power station has entered the commissioning stage, and the engineering team is rushing to meet the construction period, striving to put it into operation and generate electricity by the end of this year. The solar thermal energy storage power station is equipped with two adjacent heat absorption towers, sharing a steam turbine generator. Nearly 30000 solar mirrors are installed under the towers, with a lighting area of 800000 square meters. The power station uses mirrors that track the rotation of the sun to concentrate sunlight into a heat absorbing tower to heat molten salt, thereby driving a steam turbine to generate electricity, "said Wen Jianghong, project manager of the Guazhou Solar Thermal Energy Storage Project of Three Gorges Group. It is reported that the solar thermal energy storage power station adopts a dual tower and dual mirror field design. The heliostat located in the middle area of the two mirror fields can serve any heat absorption tower, and can improve the optical efficiency by about 24% under the same boundary conditions. It is also equipped with a 6-hour molten salt heat storage system, which has the characteristics of long heat storage time, fast response speed, stable output power, and better peak shaving performance. The staff told reporters that the high-definition heliostat is made of special materials such as ultra white glass, and its reflection efficiency can reach 94%, which reflects more sunlight onto the heat absorption tower and greatly improves the power generation efficiency. In addition, beneath the towering heat absorption tower, there are two huge storage tanks filled with molten salt with a boiling point of 600 ℃. The solar energy collected through the heat absorption tower during the day is stored in the form of thermal energy in liquid molten salt, achieving 24-hour stable and uninterrupted power output. On the project rendering, you can get a glimpse of the overall picture of the solar thermal energy storage power station. Two huge circular arrays each "rule" one side, and at the center of each array, there is a heat absorbing tower about 200 meters high. These two huge arrays are like two concave mirrors, reflecting sunlight onto the central heat absorbing tower. The mirror surface of the overlapping part of two circular arrays is also unique - it can rotate freely. When there is sufficient sunlight on the east side of the array in the morning, the mirror will twist its angle to reflect more sunlight onto the east tower; When the sunlight on the west side array is better in the afternoon, it will turn back and reflect the sunlight onto the west tower. Compared with traditional single tower solar thermal power plants, this dual tower or even multi tower design can be unrestricted by installed capacity, and at the same time, the power generation efficiency, output, and energy storage will be greatly improved. (New Society)