eSolar shows off with 24,000 heliostats

For this year’s American Independence Day, there was a special feature in California. eSolar, a company that specializes in solar thermal power, transformed a vast field of 24,000 heliostats (or light weight mirrors) at its Southern California solar farm into a tableau of the American flag and the Statue of Liberty. eSolar that is backed up by Google, uses software and imaging technology to create a dynamic parabola from tens of thousands of closely packed mirrors, focusing the sun’s rays on water boilers that sit atop towers. The intense heat vaporizes the water to create steam that drives an electricity-generating turbine.

This was a way of eSolar proclaiming the ‘energy independence’. The display was designed just for the company to show off their technological prowess.
[NYTimes]