The US Dept. of Energy awarded $4.35 million to Arizona Public Service and Tucson-based US Solar to develop
thermal storage systems for solar energy. One of the test sites, the Saguaro Solar Power Plant [
right, credit APS], near Red Rock, north of Tucson, will store the energy in oil in a tank filled with rock. The other site is in Georgia and will use sand to absorb the heat for use later.