BrightSource Energy is to go ahead with three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants thanks to over $1.37 billion in loan guarantees from the US Department of Energy (DOE) under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).
The Ivanpah Solar Complex will be located in the Mojave Desert in south eastern California, near the border with Nevada.
The new plants will generate around 400 MW of electricity and will nearly double the country’s current generation capacity in concentrated solar power.
When operational, the complex will be the largest concentrated solar power complex in the world, providing power for around 140,000 homes in the state.
BrightSource’s Luz Power Tower 550 technology relies on thousands of ‘heliostats’, which have two mirrors that can track the sun in two dimensions to increase solar energy capture.
The heliostats concentrate the energy onto a solar tower containing a water boiler, which creates high temperature steam to drive a turbine.
The Ivanpah project will also use air-cooling to convert the steam back into water, a system that requires 25 times less water than other typical solar thermal technologies employing wet-cooling.
The company expects to begin construction later this year and start operations in 2012. The second plant will go online in mid-2013 and the third later that year.
“As home to some of the world’s best solar fields and the nation’s largest green economy, it is no surprise the world’s largest solar energy project would choose California,” commented California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
For further information:
www.brightsourceenergy.com/
www.energy.gov
www.recovery.gov
www.lgprogram.energy.gov/
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