MIT's sunflower-inspired concentrated solar power design

Concentrated solar power (CSP) plants are on the rise, some proponents even claiming that with enough sunlight and land, CSP could power the entire United States. Land is key, however, given their considerable size. The PS10 site in Seville, Spain, for example, is 100 meters high and is surrounded by rows of over 600 mirrors, each as large as a tennis court. To reduce the amount of land required for a CSP facility and to increase the amount of sunlight collected by their mirrors, researchers at MIT have collaborated with RWTH Aachen University in Germany to draft new designs based on sunflowers. They rearranged the mirrors, or heliostats, by calculating numerical optimizations that bring the fanned-out layout closer together. This spiral design will significantly cut down on CSP plant costs and reduce the chance that mirrors will block each other or cast interfering shadows.