BrightSource Energy Launches SolarPLUS™ – High-Efficiency Solar Thermal Power Plants with Storage

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http://eon.businesswire.com/news/eon/20110803006334/en/BrightSource/solar-thermal/utility-scale

BrightSource Energy Launches SolarPLUS™ – High-Efficiency Solar Thermal Power Plants with Storage

Provides Cost-effective, Flexible Power When Needed Most;
Helps Utility Customers and Grid Operators Maintain Reliable Grid

August 03, 2011 12:03 PM Eastern Daylight Time

OAKLAND, Calif.--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--BrightSource Energy, Inc., a leading solar thermal technology company, today launched a new solar thermal power plant solution for utilities. Called SolarPLUS™, the offering combines BrightSource’s high-efficiency LPT power tower solar thermal technology with proven two-tank molten salt storage.

Solar power industry analysts have long recognized solar thermal storage and efficiency gains as two critical components of driving down the cost of solar electricity, while also realizing the significant reliability benefits that solar thermal power provides utilities and grid operators.

SolarPLUS™ now brings these two critical components together by combining BrightSource’s market-leading LPT solar thermal power generating technology with proven molten salt storage. The benefits of this combination include:

• Extending the production of electricity into later parts of the day and after the sun sets when it is most valued by utilities


• Reducing the cost of renewable power for utilities’ customers by increasing a plant’s capacity factor and offering higher efficiencies than competing solar thermal power plants


• Providing utilities with greater operational flexibility to shape production to meet changing utility customer demand


• Offering utilities and grid operators additional operational and market value, by providing balancing and shaping capabilities, as well as ancillary services to support a reliable grid.

“Coupling storage with BrightSource’s high-efficiency LPT solar thermal technology represents a natural and critical advancement in utility-scale solar power generation,” said Israel Kroizer, EVP of Engineering, R&D and Product Supply, BrightSource Energy and President of BrightSource Industries (Israel) Ltd. “We’re thrilled to offer a solution that can meet the low-cost and real time power needs of utility customers, while providing the ancillary services that ensure a reliable grid.”

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http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/technology