CSIRO’s Brayton Cycle Project

Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, developed a technology that requires only sunlight and air to generate electricity. The system is ideal for areas that face acute water shortages. The solar Brayton Cycle project replaces use of concentrated sun rays to heat water into high-pressure steam to drive a turbine with solar energy to create a solar thermal field. The technology focuses the sun’s rays projected onto a field of mirrors knows as heliostats onto a 30-meter (98 ft) high solar tower to heat compressed air, which subsequently expands to through a 200kW turbine to generate electricity.