On a dry, scrubby plain on the edge of the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, 24,000 mirrors track the Sun’s progress across a clear, blue sky. The neat ranks of heliostats and the computer algorithm that moves them make the Sierra SunTower plant a focal point for a novel type of power generation and a new wave of energy companies looking to turn the search for renewables into successful businesses.

Solar tower technology uses mirrors to reflect sunlight on to a thermal receiver atop a tower. The reflected sunlight boils water inside the receiver to create superheated steam at 440C (824F), which drives a turbine and generates electricity.

The plant is a demonstration facility built by eSolar, one company among dozens in California aiming to heed President Obama’s call for a new energy industry that is less reliant on fossil fuels. ESolar, which is based in Pasadena, started less than three years ago and has gathered $170 million (£107 million) of investment, including funding from Google, in its attempt to make solar power mainstream.

The Sierra SunTower facility features two 190ft (58m) towers surrounded by 20 acres (8ha) of mirrors in neat rows that stand at about chest height. The five-megawatt plant produces electricity for Southern California Edison (SCE) and can power more than 4,000 homes. Each one-metre-square mirror, or heliostat, sits on a mechanism that allows computer software to move it in precise increments, so that it is always at an optimal angle to reflect the Sun’s ray’s on to the thermal receiver.