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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st

7 hours ago

Not quite right.

The 1000 degree air is not used directly to drive turbines, but instead to deliver heat to a heat storage unit via a heat exchanger. The solar-heated air, after flowing through the heat exchanger, is still around 250 degrees and the article mentions some possible uses of that heated air (again, not generation).

Generation occurs using heat coming from the heat storage unit, not using the solar-heated hot air. Since the heat storage unit can also be fed by hot air heated via other means, this makes the heat storage unit "source neutral" - it can be heated by solar or fossil fuel combustion (or whatever).

The turbines are "downstream" of the heat storage unit.