Nevada Solar One uses proprietary technology to track the sun's location and concentrate its rays during peak demand hours. The plant uses 760
parabolic trough concentrators with more than 182,000 mirrors that concentrate the sun's rays onto more than 18,240 solar receivers placed at the focal axis of the troughs. These contain a heat transfer fluid that heats up to and is used to produce steam that drives a
Siemens SST-700
steam turbine, adapted to the specific requirements of the CSP technology, which is connected to a generator to produce electricity. The mirrors are manufactured by Flabeg AG in Germany. In contrast to the
power tower concentrator concept that California's original Solar One project uses. The specially coated tubes, made of glass and steel, were designed and produced by
Solel Solar Systems as well as by
Schott Glass in Germany. Motion control was supplied by
Parker Hannifin, from components by
Ansco Machine Company. Solar thermal power plants designed for solar-only generation are well matched to summer noon peak loads in areas with significant cooling demands, such as the southwestern United States. Using
thermal energy storage systems, solar thermal operating periods can be extended to meet base load needs. Given Nevada's land and sun resources, the state has the theoretical ability to have more than 600 GW of electrical generation capacity using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One. It has been proposed that massive expansion of solar plants such as Nevada Solar One has the potential to provide sufficient electricity to power the entire United States.
Parabolic concentrator facilities have been successfully operating in
California's Mojave Desert commercially since 1984, with a combined generating capacity of 354MW from the
Solar Energy Generating Systems. == Production ==