Nearly $1.4 billion in DOE loan guarantees for BrightSource

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced conditional commitments for more than $1.37 billion in loan guarantees under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to BrightSource Energy Inc. to support the construction and start-up of three utility-scale concentrated solar power plants. The new plants will generate approximately 400MW of electricity. This would nearly double the existing generation capacity of this type of renewable energy in the U.S. The three-plant Ivanpah Solar Complex will be located on federally-owned land in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California near the Nevada border, and will be the world’s largest operational concentrated solar power complex. Once operational, the project will supply clean electric power to approximately 140,000 California homes.