Hot Take: How 63,000 mirrors turn sunlight into electricity

China has just switched on three giant solar towers surrounded by 63,000 mirrors. People are calling it "three suns in the sky."

Located in northwest China's Qinghai, the project is the nation's first three-tower thermal base and part of a million-kilowatt clean energy project that combines solar panels, molten-salt storage, and heat-to-power technology.

The mirrors track the sun and focus its light onto receivers at the top of the towers, generating intense heat. The concentrated sunlight creates temperatures of up to 700 degrees Celsius. That heat melts salt stored in huge tanks near the towers.

When electricity is needed, the hot molten salt heats water, creating high-pressure steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity – enough to keep producing power for up to eight hours after sunset.

Around the towers, there's also a massive field of solar panels – and sheep graze underneath. Most of that green power gets sent away through an 800-kilovolt ultra-high-voltage line. 63,000 mirrors chasing the sun, turning all that sunlight into power. That's something worth seeing.

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