Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant Exclusion Zone, Pripyat, Ivankiv Raion, Ukraine

There is yet another type of solar thermal electric plant. The sunlight strikes the bottom of a water pond, warming the lowest layer of water which is prevented from rising by a salt gradient. A Rankine cycle engine exploits the temperature difference in the water layers to produce electricity.
Not many solar thermal electric plants have been built. Most of them can be found in the Mojave Desert of the United States although Sandia National Laboratory (again in the United States), Israel and Spain have also built a few plants.