[baseline-shift]

That article from 2016 is not about the CSP project in Nevada (Crescent Dunes) but the one across the border in California (Ivanpah) that had the bird kills because it had no thermal energy storage and thus had to keep heliostats focused near the solar receiver, creating a hot spot nearby.

Crescent Dunes invented the algorithm for focus that prevents birdkills. And it had thermal energy storage, the first tower CSP at utility scale to do so, which removes the need to keep the heliostats always on standby focused together on one spot. Ivanpah was the last CSP built with no storage, and since then no bird kills. All 30 projects in China have been required to include storage.

Crescent Dunes (100 MW) had other problems as the first ever Tower CSP with storage at utility scale (Gemasolar had been built with storage a few years earlier in Spain, at 50 MW. Crescent Dunes had a major outage because a tank leaked, bankrupting the startup that developed it, but now its owned by a big Spanish outfit and has been back online for several years, supplying night solar to Las Vegas: https://www.solarpaces.org/what-happened-with-crescent-dunes...

[hakonjdjohnsen]

So the birdkill is actually from a separate focal spot near the absorber where standby heliostats are focused? Interesting, I did not know that! Makes me wonder why standby heliostats would need to be focused at all? Couldn't their aimpoints be randomized over a much larger volume near the receiver, while still being standby and able to quickly move back onto the receiver when needed?

By the way, I’m happy to find someone with CSP knowledge on HN. Are you working in the field?