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February 12, 2009 – Vol.13 No.47 Southern California Edison (SCE) to Purchase 1300 MW of Solar Thermal Power from BrightSource Energy. The agreement between the companies is the world’s largest solar power deal to date. Subject to approval from the California Public Utilities Commission SCE would begin purchasing the power in 2013 when the first of seven projects is completed by BrightSource. That project sized at 100 megawatts and located in Ivanpah, California is expected to produce 286,000 megawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year. BrightSource will build additional plants as quickly as permitting and infrastructure allow. The full 1,300 megawatts of projects will produce 3.7 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy and avoid more than two million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually – the equivalent of removing more than 335,000 cars from the road. 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 an environmentally-friendly closed cycle. This fully integrated energy system is designed to offer the highest operating efficiencies and lowest capital costs in the industry according to BrightSource.
SCE is currently the nation’s leading purchaser of renewable energy and, in 2007, bought more than 80 percent of the solar energy produced in the United States for its customers. Also in 2007, the utility purchased about 12.5 billion kilowatt-hours of renewable energy, which comprises about 16 percent of SCE’s total energy portfolio. SCE currently has sufficient contracts in place that, when delivering, will meet 20 percent or more of its customers’ energy needs with renewable energy. SCE serves a population of more than 13 million via 4.8 million customer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service area within Central, Coastal and Southern California. With this agreement BrightSource has contracted to sell up to 2,200 megawatts of power to be generated using its proprietary solar thermal technology. BrightSource Energy is a privately held company with operations in the United States and Israel. (2/12/09)
Links: BrightSource Southern California Edison
Related: --- BrightSource Energy Orders Solar Steam Turbine Generator for Solar Thermal Power Plant. --- First Solar Completes 2MW Solar Power Plant for Southern California Edison (SCE).
Disclaimer, Forward-Looking or Safe Harbor Statement on original press release: No
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