PG&E/BRIGHTSOURCE IN HUGE SOLAR DEAL

PG&E strikes huge solar power deal with BrightSource
Tracy Seipel, May 13, 2009 (San Jose Mercury News)

"In what is touted to be the largest solar deal in the world, Pacific Gas & Electric…has expanded a series of solar-power contracts with Oakland's BrightSource Energy for a total of 1,310 megawatts of electricity — enough to power 530,000 California homes during peak hours[noon to 7 p.m.]…The power purchase agreements, which will now include seven power plants, add to a previous contract the two companies struck last April for up to 900 megawatts of solar thermal power.

"…BrightSource now has 2,610 megawatts under contract…more than any other solar thermal company in the world and…more than 40 percent of all large-scale solar thermal contracts in the United States…[BrightSource will design, build, own and operate] the plants at a cost of at least $3 billion in the southwestern deserts of California, Nevada and Arizona. The company anticipates the first of those plants, a 110-megawatt facility at Ivanpah in eastern San Bernadino County, to begin operation by 2012."

A BrightSource DPT installation. (click to enlarge)

"BrightSource's founder and chairman is Arnold Goldman, whose now-defunct Luz International built nine solar plants in the Mojave Desert between 1984 and 1990. All of them are still operating.

"BrightSource uses what it calls distributed power towers, or DPTs, in which sunlight from thousands of movable mirrors are concentrated to heat water to more than 1,000 degrees in a boiler to make steam. That steam feeds a turbine that makes electricity… "

A BrightSource DPT installation. (click to enlarge)

"On average, half of the electricity PG&E delivers to its customers comes from carbon-free generating sources, making the company's energy among the cleanest in the nation.

"Publicly owned California utilities such as PG&E must get 20 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2010, but they can meet the requirement with contracts if the projects go online by 2013. PG&E already has contracts in hand that exceed that 20 percent goal…PG&E gets 12 percent of its energy from renewable sources now, and expects that to increase to 14 percent by the end of the year."