GOOGLE IN ON SOLAR POWER PLANT

BrightSource Energy Closes Financing for Ivanpah Project; Finalizes $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the US Department of Energy, Google Joins BrightSource and NRG Solar as Equity Investor in Ivanpah Solar Project
April 11, 2011 (BrightSource Energy)

"BrightSource Energy, Inc…has closed financing for the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System. Ivanpah is the world‘s largest solar project under construction and when completed in 2013 will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the U.S. today.

"As part of the financing, BrightSource finalized $1.6 billion in loans guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Loan Programs Office. The company also announced that Google will join NRG Solar LLC and BrightSource as an equity investor in the project by making a $168 million investment."

Schematic of the BrightSource solar power plant technology (click to enlarge)

"In October 2010, NRG Solar LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of NRG Energy, announced its commitment to invest up to $300 million to become the lead investor in the project. NRG‘s investment commitment coincided with BrightSource‘s engineering partner, Bechtel, commencing construction on the project…"

from BrightSource Energy - click to enlarge

[Jack Jenkins-Stark, Chief Financial Officer, BrightSource Energy:] “By driving energy innovation in the field, not just in the labs, the DOE‘s loan guarantee program is playing a vital role in realizing our nation‘s clean energy and economic goals…In partnership with the DOE, NRG, Bechtel and now Google, we‘re building at Ivanpah cost-effective, environmentally friendly and reliable solar power plants. We‘re thrilled to work with two of America‘s leading utilities – PG&E and Southern California Edison – to provide their customers with clean, reliable and cost-effective solar power at a meaningful scale.”

[Rick Needham, Director of Green Business Operations, Google:]“We‘re excited to be making our largest clean energy investment to date. With this investment, we‘re helping to deploy the first commercial plant of a potentially transformative solar technology able to deliver clean energy at scale…Ivanpah will be the largest solar power tower project in the world, able to produce clean electricity at the highest efficiency of any solar thermal plant. We hope it can serve as a proof point and spur further investment in this exciting technology."