Solar startup BrightSource Energy has filed an application with the California Energy Commission to build a 400-megawatt solar power station complex in the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border. Two 100-megawatt plants and one 200-megawatt station would be built using the Oakland, California, company’s distributed power tower technology. Fields of sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats focus the sun’s rays on a water-filled boiler that sits atop a tower. The intense heat creates steam which drives a turbine to generate electricity. The site, called Ivanpah, is on federal land about five miles south of Primm, Nevada, on the California side of the border. The company says the construction application is the first to be filed since 1989, when BrightSource founder Arnold Goldman’s Luz International built the last of nine solar power plants that continue to operate in Southern California. BrightSource CEO John Woolard says the company is negotiating with California utilities for the purchase of the power the plants will generate. BrightSource has been negotiating with California utility PG&E (PCG) to supply 500 megawatts of solar electricity but a final agreement had not been reached. Both Southern California Edison (EIX) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) have contracted for large-scale solar power plants with Stirling Energy Systems and have been expanding their solar portfolios.
BrightSource to Build 400-Megawatt Solar Power Station
September 6, 2007 by Todd Woody
Green Wombat 
While California is steaming to achieve 20% of the electricity from alternative energies by 2010,in the south, we are still debating whether the global warming is real or not.
Idea inbreeding is rampant in the South. I live in Tallahassee. Enough said. The tides are changing though. If it does not change its ways, FL will be in a world of a mess. Energy and water are huge concerns. Global Warming or not, the state must change.
I come to this site often. I welcome anyone in the state to seek me out.
A couple of questions in case anybody knows the answers.
What is the cost of building this plant?
What is the acreage of the facility?
The site is south of pRimm, Nevada.
Here is the website for LUZ II (brightsource)
http://www.luz2.com/
I am not sure what the cost would be but from what I have read it is supposed to be cheaper than the present solar trough system. I can see some advantages. Not having to run the HTF (oil) all over the plant site and probably better during the winter. The present sites don’t have the ability to adjust for the north-south movement of the sun. Some of the future plants,that were supposed to be built,did have plans to be able to do this. Some of the claims, particuarly that the tracking mirrors would be almost zero maintenance I find a little hard to believe.
Just remember that anouncing a plant, without a contract, is a very long ways from starting to build it with one. You will find in the power industry lots of plants get announced but never built. I really do wish them all the best and hope they can make it work.