eSolar, a producer of scalable solar thermal power plants, has signed a power purchase agreement with Southern California Edison (SCE) to build a total of 245 MW of concentrating solar plants in the Antelope Valley region of Southern California. The series of fully operational plants will begin production in 2011, the companies note.
‘SCE is committed to providing renewable energy generation at competitive costs. To this end, we review all of the possible sources to meet the growing demand for clean power,’ says Stuart Hemphill, SCE vice president, renewable and alternative power. ‘eSolar's proposed solar projects promise to be modular, scalable, and easily and rapidly deployed. SCE is excited about the prospects of eSolar's unique solar technology and the potential benefits it can bring for our customers.’
On the heels of its $130 million funding round in April led by Idealab, Google.org and Oak Investment Partners, eSolar says that is aggressively pursuing a novel approach to large or utility-scale solar projects. Leveraging a proprietary combination of optics and software in a pre-fabricated form factor, eSolar achieves economies of scale with a modular design that focuses on the key business obstacles that have characterized large solar installations – price, scalability, speed of deployment and grid impact.
SOURCE: eSolar
