BrightSource Energy הודיעה בשבוע שעבר כי מועצת האנרגיה של קליפורניה החליטה לאשר את השימוש במערכת ההפעלה של החברה להפקת אנרגיה תרמוסולארית. הכוונה לתחנת כח IVANPAH .האישור מקדם את ברייטסורס בהפעלת התחנה שתפיק 392 מגהואט ותה יה הגדולה בעולם בסוגה.
John Woolard ,נשיא ומנכ"ל החברה אמר כי הם מצפים לאישור הסופי של מועצת האנרגיה כדי שיוכלו להתחיל בבנייה. בתום תקופת המתנה של 30 יום בה יכול הציבור להגיש התנגדויות צפויה מועצת הטאנרגיה לתת החלטה סופית.
האישור הופך למוחשי את הערבות הפדראלית בסך 1.37$ מיליארד שקיבלה החברה למימון תחנת כח זו.
The Ivanpah Project: Clean Energy, Union Jobs, Environmentally-Responsible Design
The Ivanpah project, located in southeastern California, consists of three separate solar thermal power plants. When constructed, the project will:
- produce enough clean energy to power 140,000 homes
- reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 400,000 tons annually, the equivalent of taking more than 70,000 cars off the road
- create more than 1,000 local union jobs at the peak of construction
- provide $650 million in employee wages over its first 30-year life
The Ivanpah project will be built by Bechtel, a global leader in engineering and construction. In December 2009, Bechtel signed a project labor agreement with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California (SBCTC) and the Building & Construction Trades Council of San Bernardino and Riverside counties to ensure that California’s local workforce benefits from the project.
“This proposed decision moves us one step closer to putting the High Desert’s talented labor pool to work building our state’s much needed infrastructure,” said Bob Balgenorth, President of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California. “Ivanpah is setting a great standard by training and employing the middle class workers that support our state’s economy.”
The power generated from these solar plants will be sold under separate contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). PG&E will purchase approximately two-thirds of the power generated at Ivanpah and SCE will purchase approximately one-third. In all, BrightSource has contracted with PG&E and SCE to deliver more than 2,600 megawatts of electric power.
The project is also setting a higher bar when it comes to environmental design. Instead of the extensive land grading and concrete pads employed by other competing solar technologies, BrightSource mounts mirrors on individual poles that are placed directly into the ground, allowing the solar field to be built around the natural contours of the land and avoid areas of sensitive vegetation.
In order to conserve precious desert water, the Ivanpah project will employ an air-cooling system to convert the steam back into water in a closed-loop cycle. By using air-cooling, the project will use only 100 acre feet of water per year, approximately 95 percent less water than competing solar thermal technologies that use wet-cooling.
“Large-scale solar technologies provide one of our best hopes for solving the problem of global climate change,” said Amy Davidsen, U.S. Director of The Climate Group. “To meet this potential, we need to scale up the use of these technologies as soon as possible. Today’s proposed decision recommending approval of the Ivanpah project represents a major step toward the realization of this goal.”
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