World’s Largest Solar Thermal Plant

Ivanpah, California is the location for the world's largest solar thermal power generation plant complex and will produce up to 400MW of electrical power using the freely available sun when completed in 2012.  BrightSource plan is to build three solar thermal power generators beginning in 2010 that will cover 3,500 acres (5.5sq.miles, 14.2sq.kms) in the Mojave Desert. The total output is expected to be around 286,000 megawatt hours of power annually, providing enough power for 140,000 homes, and reducing CO2 emissions by 400,000 tons per year.

BrightSource is an Israeli company that builds solar thermal power plants that use sun tracking mirrors (heliostats) to reflect sunlight onto a central collector to generate steam that spins turbines to generate electricity equivalent to a large nuclear power plant but without any radiation risks and no greenhouse gas emissions.

Electrical utility companies PG&E and Southern California Edison, will buy the clean energy, and resell it at a price premium. Each company is planning on purchasing power from BrightSource power plants, with upwards of 2.6 gigawatts of power stations developed at multiple sites in California.

Visit: www.brightsourceenergy.com

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