[ASU Diablo]

Planned Arizona solar tower would be tallest structure in North America

The small southwestern Arizona town of San Luis has approved the $1.5 billion Solar Wind Energy Tower Inc. project, which will result in the tallest structure in North America.
Bloomberg News reported today the structure would be 2,250 feet tall. By comparison, the 108-story Willis Tower in Chicago (formerly the Sears Tower) stands at 1,451 feet.
This planned project would use ambient desert heat to create a draft to generate electricity.
The Annapolis, Maryland-based company chose this city 20 miles southwest of Yuma as its first project in the U.S. after evaluating multiple sites in the Southwest over two and a half years, company officials say.

“The San Luis site was selected in part by utilizing our recently announced proprietary software which can accurately calculate and predict energy production 24/7 given local weather data,” said Ron Pickett, CEO of Solar Wind Energy Tower Inc. “By feeding the weather data into the program, the outcome dictates the optimum size of the tower’s dimensions as well as its financial performance. As a result, Solar Wind Energy deemed this location as prime for a tower project.”

The Solar Wind Downdraft Tower structure will resemble a nuclear plant’s cooling tower and would be capable of generating an average rate of 435 megawatt-hours over a year’s time, with the output almost tripling in the hottest months of July and August, Pickett told Bloomberg.

Solar Wind created the technology for the project, which has yet to find financing or an energy customer, according to Bloomberg.

The San Luis City Council approved the deal April 23. The company plans to purchase more than 600 acres in the city, Solar Wind officials say.

This could be big...definitely headed in the right direction when it's coming to solar