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Most practical active solar heating systems provide storage from a few hours to a day's worth of energy collected. However, there are a growing number of facilities that use seasonal thermal energy storage (STES), enabling solar energy to be stored in summer for space heating use during winter.[6][7][8] The Drake Landing Solar Community in Alberta, Canada, has now achieved a year-round 97% solar heating fraction, a world record made possible only by incorporating STES.[6][9]

The use of both latent heat and sensible heat are also possible with high temperature solar thermal input. Various eutectic mixtures of metals, such as Aluminium and Silicon (AlSi12) offer a high melting point suited to efficient steam generation,[10] while high alumina cement-based materials offer good thermal storage capabilities.[11] The plant is of the solar power tower type CSP and uses concepts pioneered in the Solar One and Solar Two demonstration projects, using molten salt as its heat transfer fluid and energy storage medium. Originally called Solar Tres, it was renamed Gemasolar.[3]

The project, which has received a subsidy of five million Euros from the European Commission and a loan of 80 million Euros from the European Investment Bank, makes use of the Solar Two technology tested in Barstow, California, but is approximately three times the size. It makes use of several advances in technology after Solar Two was designed and built.

Gemasolar is the first commercial solar plant with central tower receiver and molten salt heat storage technology. It consists of a 30.5 hectares (75 acres) solar heliostat aperture area with a power island and 2,650 heliostats, each with a 120 square metres (1,300 sq ft) aperture area and distributed in concentric rings around the 140-metre-high (460 ft) tower receiver. The total land use of the Heliostats is 195 hectares (480 acres)[4]

The most innovative aspects of the plant, which belongs to the company Torresol Energy, are its molten salt receiver, its heliostats aiming system and its control system. In addition, its storage system allows it to produce electricity for 15 hours without sunlight (at night or on cloudy days). This storage capacity makes its solar power manageable so that it can be supplied based on demand. The plant has already been able to supply a full day[5] of uninterrupted power supply to the grid, using thermal transfer technology developed by SENER.

Gemasolar, with its 19.9 MW of power, can supply 110 GWh per year — enough to supply power to 27,500 homes. The plant has been operational since May 2011. Its official launch was held in October 2011.[6]