BrightSource Energy Inc. of Oakland scored another big deal Wednesday in California, announcing a 20-year contract to supply Southern California Edison with enough solar energy from remote desert generating plants to power 845,000 homes.
The agreement for 1,300 megawatts of renewable energy is believed to be the biggest-ever contract for so-called solar-thermal power, which uses heat from the sun to create steam to spin electric turbines.
The deal calls for seven plants to be built in far-flung areas of southeastern California over the next seven years. If approved by regulators, the first 100-megawatt facility would be built in the Mojave Desert near the San Bernardino County community of Ivanpah, near the Nevada border. The plant could be operational by 2013.
"We do see solar as the large untapped resource, particularly in Southern California," said Stuart Hemphill, vice president for renewable and alternative power at Edison, which is headquartered in Rosemead along with its parent company, Edison International.
Wednesday's agreement is the second major contract announced by BrightSource in California. Last year, the company signed a deal with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to supply the San Francisco-based utility with up to 900 megawatts of solar-thermal power.
At full build-out, the Ivanpah location will total 400 megawatts -- 300 of those for PG&E, the remainder for Edison. The construction of the site is expected to generate around 950 jobs, BrightSource spokesman Keely Wachs said.
The company's latest deal is welcome news for the renewable energy sector, which has been squeezed by the credit crunch. Solar and wind companies around the country are cutting jobs and delaying projects for lack of financing.
"It's nice to see a major utility and a major project developer move forward," said Nathaniel Bullard, a solar energy analyst with New Energy Finance in Alexandria, Va. "Development is not dead."
Privately held BrightSource has raised more than $160 million from equity investors, including VantagePoint Venture Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Google.org. The solar company's power plants will cost billions of dollars to develop, although BrightSource wouldn't say exactly how much to keep competitors in the dark.
But with its projects still in the permitting stages and the first PG&E plant not slated to come online for a couple of years, the company has time to wait for the financing climate to improve before it needs big bucks to ramp up construction.
