Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E) has entered into a 177 MW solar thermal power purchasing agreement with Ausra Inc. The project, developed by Ausra and to be located in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., is expected to begin generating power in 2010.
"Solar thermal technology provides our customers with a reliable source of clean renewable energy that is ideally suited to meet peak energy loads," says Fong Wan, vice president of energy procurement for PG&E." By partnering with Ausra, we are taking another significant step in providing our customers with some of the cleanest energy in the nation."
Ausra projects that the power plant will create over 350 skilled jobs on-site during construction, and an additional 100 permanent jobs in the area. The plant will burn no fuel, use minimal water and have no air or water emissions. At 177 MW of capacity, the project will use only one square mile (640 acres) of land due to the exceptional area efficiency of Ausra's new Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar technology.
