While LUZ was the pioneer in implementing solar thermal trough technology at Kramer junction, but failed in its business and financing models, its original founders/managers, Arnold Goldman, Israel Kroizer and others have learned their lesson, and are pursuing mainly bankable solutions and proven technologies. Only a small portion of tens of million US Dollars raised by them last year, are being used for developing the multi-tower concept; where each module will consist of four towers (60 meters height w/o the receiver, that will add another 15 meters) with four heliostat fields (each consists of appr. 1600 heliostats), that will produce superheated steam at 540 deg C and 140 Bar and generate a steam turbine. In the business plans presented to investors, they claim to pursue the next generation based on a Brayton cycle with much higher influx temperatures, above 1200degc. Apparently, they are neglecting these plans for now, due to the technological risks involved.
LuzII Ltd., and it’s mother company BrightSource Inc. decided to take advantage of their reputation in the US and to sign a contract with PG&E to supply 500 MW of power with an option for another 400MW. The first of these solar power plants, sized at 100 MW will be built in Ivanpah, California, by BrightSource, and are expected to be operational as early as 2011 and produce 246,000 megawatt hours of electricity per year.
On one hand, it’s an important step ahead by PG&E. but on the other, it may be interpreted as a mitigation plan by PG&E in case the other Israeli company, Solel Solar Systems, will not be able to provide the 553 MW by the same year, since they are having hard time is securing the required funding (so far Solel secured only 105MUSD from the UK based, Ecofin). The key people at BrightSource/LUZII were leading the development, manufacturing and installation of three generations of solar collectors LS-1,2 and 3, but Solel developed enhanced generation of Solar Collector Assembly, including its parabolic trough collector, positioning system and control system.
The competition is definitely getting “hotter”, while LUZII/BrightSource are almost not taking any technological risks and using a bankable technology. We only do hope that there are enough smart and visionary investors that will dare to invest in technology breakthroughs for the benefit of the solar thermal market.
Next on our post: how we intend to intruige Google to take advantage of the smart techology people in Israel and join us in extablishing the TestSol adventure……. coming soon….
