Event Horizons Solar Activity

Barstow, CA

Located around Barstow are 3 major solar plants. The famous "Solar 1" plant in Daggett was an experimental plant built by Edison with DOE money. It used a field of heliostats to make steam on a central tower. About 1995, they converted the plant to use molten salt and called it Solar 2. That plant was just shut down and is is the process of being sold off. I attended the auction where there were supposed to be mirror for sale, but they were withdrawn at the last minute. Click Here for more details on the mirrors.

While I was at the auction, I noticed what looked like a Photovoltaic concentrator evaluation assembly. Click here for pictures.

Also located in Daggett is a couple of "Solar Electric Generating System" (SEGS) plants, built by LUZ engineering. LUZ USA later went bankrupt, leaving the plants in the hands of the investors. These plants use tracking mirror troughs to heat mineral oil, which is then used to make steam for running turbines. This is the plant that had the spectacular fire in February 1999. (Picture)

There is another LUZ-built SEGS plant in Boron, 30 miles west of Barstow.

Event Horizons is in the process of building a 20KW (solar) concentrating heliostat in order to heat our 4000 square foot building without giving dump trucks of money to the local gas company.

Our design is based on the concept that if we can put up mirrors cheap enough then for more power we just add more mirrors. The system is built using all steel construction, welded together, with a minimum of machined and fitted surfaces.
The key is the heliostat, the collector is an ordinary electric hot water heater with half the insulation cut away and 2 pumps, one to circulate to water between the collector and a 1500 gallon tank and another to circulate the hot water through radiators in the building

Rendering of the heliostat design

This page is intended to provide information about our progress.
Check back occasionally for updates, hopefully we will have tracking mirrors in late October 1999.

This page was last updated 14 September 2002.

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