Solar Power Plants

Solar thermal energy is a technology for harnessing solar energy for heat. This article is devoted primarily to solar thermal electric power plants; that is, power plants that generate electricity by converting solar energy to heat, to drive a thermal power plant. This is very different from solar photovoltaics, which convert solar energy directly into electricity.

Other thermal energy (with no further discussion here), are Solar thermal collectors, such as solar hot water panels. They are commonly used to generate solar hot water for domestic and light industrial applications. They can be integrated in architecture and building design to control heating and ventilation in both active solar and passive solar designs.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants