Novel concept but pretty low efficiency (about 2%). Only makes sense in very open areas. Maybe could be a mass egg frier as well ...

The centralized power tower is still being invested in:

More on trough systems:

close up view:

The heat exchanger:

Large arrays can be built to leverage abandoned cooling towers:

354 MW capacity located on 7 square km of desert in California So thats about 50 MW per square km.

Some equivalencies:

• 1 sq km with 1.5 MW wind turbines spaced out by 50 meters 600 MW

• 1 500 MW closed cycle gas turbine plus cooling ponds requires about 0.25 square km so on 1 sq km could get 2000 MW.

• 1 sq km with 25 KW (= .025 MW) Solar Sterling Engines spaced by 25 meters would be 40 MW

Expected unit capacities are a strong function of solar irradiance and adopted technology.