Solarbe核心提示：2009年5月15日，美国Brightsource公司签了创纪录的2.6GW太阳能塔式热发电合同。
加州公用事业公司太平洋燃气电力公司（PG&E）周三与BrightSource Energy公司扩展了一份合同，从七座大型太阳能发电站项目购买1310兆瓦的无碳电力，这是世界上迄今为止最大的太阳能电力交易。新创企业BrightSource位于加州奥克兰，有谷歌（Google）注资，2月与南加州爱迪生公司（Southern California Edison）签订了1300兆瓦的协议，其宣称拥有美国超过40%的大型太阳能电力合同。
PG&E与BrightSource曾在2008年4月签订了500兆瓦的电力购买协议，并拥有400兆瓦的优先购买权。这项新的1310兆瓦的交易将为加州53万户家庭供电。
这些数字令人振奋，但现在根本还没有开始发电。现在BrightSource面临诸多挑战：获得发电许可；为建设成本融资数十亿美元，修建十几个大型太阳能电站，在2016年完成南加州爱迪生公司的合同，2017年完成PG&E的合同。（最大的不确定因素是输电线路能否把电站发的电输送到电网。）最初的PG&E项目计划在2012年并网，并使第一个南加州爱迪生公司的太阳能电场能在次年发电。最初的这两个电站都是BrightSource在加州与内华达州边境的伊凡巴谷开展四百兆瓦发电项目的一部分。
我们的主要战略是循序渐进。” BrightSource公司CEO约翰•乌拉德（John Woolard）说，“我们会非常谨慎地逐个开展这些发电项目。”
在加州获得发电许可的程序非常复杂。2007年8月31日，BrightSource向加州能源委员会（California Energy Commission）递交了在伊凡巴谷开展发电项目的申请。这是20年来加州第一个大型太阳能电站申请。但是能源委员会估计要到2010年左右才会批准，这比原定时间推迟了半年，因为许多州和联邦部门以及环保组织要评估这一项目对环境的影响。而现在时间紧迫，必须在2010年底之前破土动工，才能有资格获得奥巴马（Obama）经济刺激计划中的联邦贷款担保。"
BrightSource也可在内华达州和亚利桑那州修建太阳能电站，为PG&E与南加州爱迪生公司供电，因为在那里获得发电许可相对容易一些。乌拉德称公司有足够的土地来修建90亿瓦的太阳能电场。
虽然BrightSource的技术尚未经过大规模测试，公司已经在技术研发部门的总部——以色列修建了一座6兆瓦的示范太阳能电站，利用数组日光反射器把日光聚集在置于塔顶的锅炉内，集中的热量将锅炉中的水蒸发，产生高压蒸汽，使标准规格的发电涡轮机得以运转。
乌拉德称独立工程公司R.W. Beck已经验证了内格夫沙漠示范太阳能电站的技术。这毫无疑问的说服了PG&E。PG&E已派高管到以色列考察此项目，以期扩展合同。（虽然与BrightSource签订的是PG&E最大的太阳能发电合同，但比起其在4月份签订的从南加州新创公司Solaren即将修建的太空太阳能电场购电合同，前者可能更容易完成。）
乌拉德说：“他们能看到我们项目的进展。我们在以色列的电站运行良好，大大超出了预期。最重要的是我们的太阳能电站能生产最高质、最高温、最高压的蒸汽。”
BrightSource的历史业绩也很辉煌。创始人是太阳能产业的先锋人物、美裔以色列人阿诺德•戈德曼（Arnold Goldman）。他的绿舟国际公司（Luz International）20世纪80年代在莫哈韦沙漠修建了九座大型槽式太阳能电站，现在仍在为南加州爱迪生公司发电。BrightSource从一群蓝筹投资者中筹资1.6亿美元，其中包括谷歌（Google）、摩根士丹利（Morgan Stanley）、VantagePoint Venture Partners以及许多石油巨头——雪佛龙（Chevron）、英国石油 (BP) 、挪威国家石油海德罗公司（StatoilHydro）。
California utility PG&E on Wednesday expanded an agreement with BrightSource Energy to buy 1,310 megawatts of carbon-free electricity to be generated by seven giant solar power plant projects – the world’s biggest solar deal to date. Coming on top of a 1,300 megawatt agreement with Southern California Edison in February, the Google-backed, Oakland, Calif.-based startup says it now holds more than 40% of the Big Solar contracts in the United States.
PG&E had previously signed a power purchase agreement with BrightSource in April 2008 for 500 megawatts with an option to buy another 400 megawatts. The new 1,310-megawatt deal will supply enough electricity to power about 530,000 homes in California.
Those are impressive numbers, but not an electron of electricity has been produced yet. BrightSource now faces the challenge of licensing, financing billions of dollars in construction costs and then building nearly a dozen large-scale solar power plants to meet a 2016 deadline for the Southern California Edison (EIX) contract and a 2017 completion date for PG&E (PCG). (The big wild card is whether transmission lines will be available to connect the power plants to the grid.) The first PG&E project is set to go online in 2012 with the first SoCal Edison solar farm to begin generating electricity the next year. Those first two power plants are part of a 400-megawatt complex BrightSource is planning for the Ivanpah Valley on the California-Nevada border.
“The biggest part of our strategy is to ramp up slowly and methodically,” BrightSource CEO John Woolard told Green Wombat. “We’re very, very careful about how we sequence the projects.”
To give you an idea of how arduous the licensing process is in California, consider that BrightSource filed its application to build Ivanpah with the California Energy Commission on Aug. 31, 2007 — the state’s first large-scale solar power plant application in two decades. But the energy commission currently estimates that it won’t sign off on the license until around 2010, more than six months’ behind schedule as a multitude of state and federal agencies and green groups weigh in on the project’s environmental impact. The clock is ticking as BrightSource needs to start shoveling dirt on the construction site by the end of 2010 to qualify for federal loan guarantees that are part of the Obama stimulus package.
BrightSource may also build solar power plants in Nevada and Arizona, where licensing is easier, to supply electricity to PG&E and Southern California Edison. Woolard says the company controls enough land for nine gigawatts’ worth of solar farms.
While BrightSource’s technology is untested on a large scale, the company has built a six-megawatt demonstration plant in Israel, where its technology development arm is headquartered. BrightSource deploys arrays of mirrors called heliostats that concentrate sunlight on a water-filled boiler that sits atop a tower. The intense heat vaporizes the water to create high-pressure steam that drives a standard electricity-generating turbine.
Woolard says an independent engineering firm, R.W. Beck, has validated the technology at the Negev Desert demo plant. That no doubt helped persuade PG&E, which has sent executives to Israel to inspect the project, to supersize its contract. (And while BrightSource represents the biggest solar deal PG&E has signed, it’s probably far more likely to be fulfilled than the utility’s agreement in April to buy electricity from a space-based solar farm to be built by Southern California startup Solaren.)
“What it came down to is that they saw us delivering,” Woolard says. “Our plant in Israel performed above expectations. The fact that we have a solar plant producing the highest quality, highest temperature, highest pressure steam anywhere in the world is the most important thing.”
The company’s pedigree also provides a certain amount of corporate comfort. BrightSource was founded by American-Israeli solar pioneer Arnold Goldman, whose Luz International built nine large-scale solar trough power plants in the Mojave Desert in the 1980s that continue to generate electricity for Southern California Edison. BrightSource has also raised more than $160 million from a blue-chip group of investors that includes Google (GOOG), Morgan Stanley (MS) and VantagePoint Venture Partners as well as a clutch of oil giants – Chevron (CVX), BP (BP) and Norway’s StatoilHydro.
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