Southern California Edison (SCE) and BrightSource Energy have reached agreement on a series of contracts for 1,300 megawatts (MW) of solar thermal power, enough to serve nearly 845,000 homes.
SCE is an Edison International (NYSE:EIX – News) company.
The agreement, which now requires approval from the California Public
Utilities Commission, calls for a series of seven projects. The first 100 MW to be sold to SCE will come from a 400-MW power plant expected to come online in Ivanpah, Calif., in early
2013. The remaining 300 MW of that project has already been sold to Pacific Gas and Electric Company (NYSE: PCG) as part of a 900-MW contract signed in April 2008.
Ivanpah is in the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border, about 75 miles south of Las Vegas. The land is owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Six 200-MW projects will also be located in the Mojave area, but specific sites have yet to be chosen.
BrightSource said it plans to build and place in commercial
operation each of its plants as quickly as permitting and
infrastructure allow.
BrightSource Energy’s proprietary Luz Power Tower 550 (LPT 550) energy system is built on proven “power tower” technology. The system uses thousands of small mirrors called heliostats to reflect sunlight onto a boiler atop a tower to produce high temperature steam. The steam is then piped to a conventional turbine which generates electricity.
In order to conserve precious desert water, the LPT 550 system uses air-cooling to convert the steam back into water. The water is then returned to the boiler in a closed cycle.
BrightSource, which is headquartered in Oakland, Calif., now has contracted to sell up to 2,200 MW of power. The following month, BrightSource received $115 million in funding from high profile investors including Google.org and BP Alternative Energy.
SCE is currently the nation’s leading purchaser of renewable energy and, in 2007, bought more than 80% of the solar energy produced in the United States for its customers. The utility currently has sufficient contracts in place that, when delivering, will meet 20% or more of its customers’ energy needs with renewable energy.
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