Laboratorio de Energía Solar Termoeléctrica
THE ABANDONED POWER PLANT ON THE CANARY ISLANDS
In 2008 company Lysply started building this power station. ‘Laboratorio de Energía Solar Termoeléctrica’ was built to generate solar power.
The huge dish should generate energy by using mirrors to concentrate a large area of sunlight, or solar thermal energy, onto a small area. Electricity is generated when the concentrated light is used in a chemical process. It’s a green process, but with this process, energy is stored in the form of methanol, using coal as an intermediate element.
The site was officially named ‘Laboratorio Promocional de Energía Termoeléctrica Solar y Almacenamiento de Energía’. While locals call it ‘Parabólica’.
The plant should be a full-scale laboratory of three solar energy receiver units, which carry out tests. So investors can check the physical reality of this technology on site with all its advantages. Surprisingly, this facility does not exist anywhere else in the world. Although in the middle of the desert of Nevada, USA there is something similar.
Lysply had one problem. The solar thermal power plant was built just 100 meters from the houses in a protected landscape. The people from El Médano complained about the storage of methanol. Also, there were no permits to built it. The site was sealed three times before works stopped. Today the site is abandoned and there are no plans to clean the site.
The photos of the abandoned solar power station were taken in 2019. You can see more Spanish abandoned locations here.
