Green Wombat happened to be chatting with BrightSource Energy CEO John Woolard yesterday at the solar power startup’s Oakland, Calif., offices when an executive burst into a conference room with big news: the California Energy Commission had accepted BrightSource’s application to be build the first large-scale solar thermal power plant in the Golden State in 16 years. “We were found data adequate this morning by the CEC,” said Doug Divine, vice president of project development. “That’s huge,” replied Woolard. “It’s a big step.”
Indeed it is. In Commission-speak, being declared “data adequate” means the expensive, year-long process of assembling hundreds of pages of documents detailing the proposed 400-megawatt power plant and its environmental impact had passed bureaucratic muster. Now the Commission begins a 12-month process to review and license the project. If all goes well, ground could be broken in early 2009 on on BrightSource’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, to be built in the Mojave Desert just across from the Nevada border in San Bernardino County. (BrightSource’s artist rendering above.)
BrightSource is currently negotiating a 500-megawatt power purchase agreement with California utility PG&E (PCG), and Woolard says the company is in talks with other utilities to supply another 1,000 megawatts from seven power plants. BrightSource has applied to lease a site from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management for a second solar power plant, a 500-megawatt project to be built near Broadwell Dry Lake in the Mojave. The company has relied on venture capital for funding but Woolard revealed Wednesday that the company has also secured investment from Morgan Stanley (MS).
There’s a certain historical symmetry in the Commission’s decision. BrightSource was founded by American-Israeli pioneer Arnold Goldman, whose Luz International built the last big solar power plant in California in 1991. That was Solar Electric Generating System IX, the last of nine solar trough power plants constructed by Luz in the Mojave Desert northeast of Los Angeles and that today are mostly operated by FPL (FPL).
BrightSource has developed a new solar technology, dubbed distributed power tower, that focuses fields of sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats on a tower containing a water-filled boiler. The sun’s rays superheat the water and the resulting steam drives an elecricity-generating turbine. BrightSource is now building a 7-megawatt pilot power plant in Israel to show investors the distributed power tower is ready for prime-time. “The technology is locked down,” Woolard says.
Green Wombat 
This is great news. I have been hearing from the nay-sayers that it couldn’t be done. If it can done in California, it surely can be done in Florida.
YAY!!! HURRAY!! What exciting news! California, our green leader in the US, lets hope the US remembers to follow behind. It seems if we could get a the governent involved these investments would be easier and easier and save more and more money. Congress is actually considering a bill right now that will, if passed in its entirety, create a standard that 15% of electricity must come from renewable resources by 2020. (It also creates a 35 mpg standard by 2020!) Its not the numbers we ultimately need to get, but it is a great start, and will encourage the growth of renewable energy and wonderful solar plants like this one in California. Because the US is so conservative, the bill is in danger of not getting passed. Click on http://www.energybill2007.org to sign the petition to let our representatives know how important this bill is!
Enrique it would be great if it would work in Florida but the amount of solar radiation in Florida is far less than in the Southwestern Desert. I have some serious doubts if commercial solar will ever really work in Forida unless it becomes much more economical to produce. FPL may have annouced a 300 MW solar plant but they only commited to build 10 MW’s worth. Florida is begging for renewable energy but the sad fact is there are not a lot of good options out there for them.
Finally the morons in California put money into the only alternative enrgy technology that makes any sense. After throwing away hundreds of millions subsidizing inefficient solar voltaic (Larry Hamen, the millionaire has-been actor, has receieved $327,000 towards the cost f his $1 million solar roof, to be paid for by single moms paying their electric bill. california political leaders suck!).
california’s claim to be green is a sham. Look at Vermont – it produces 72% of its electricity using nuclear and 22% using hydroeletcric. Vermont only emits 5 (that’s five) pounds of carbon in generating each megawatthour of electricity. Now look at arrogant California – it spews over 600 pounds
of carbon to produce each megawatthour of electricity. I’d say that California has NO right to make any claims about being green. California has done nothing but rape her citizens with the nation’s highest electric rates and greatest tax subsidies for crappy t
alternative energy technologies like wind, photovoltaic and wave, so her politicians could look green. In California, it’s all about appearance, not reality. I guess by pure chane, California finally made a choice that wasn’t braindead. I also note that it took a year to decide that a plant in the middle of nowhere wouldn’t destroy the environment. Let’s hope that absurdity won’t be repeated. Unfortunately, this is California, and we all know that it will.