Biggest U.S. solar project gets boost from gov't loan

Xinhua, April 12, 2011

The U.S. Department of Energy made a final decision on Monday that it will provide 1.6 billion U. S. dollars in loan guarantees to support the Ivanpah Solar Energy Generating System, the largest solar energy project in America.

The Ivanpah project is sponsored by BrightSource Energy, Inc. and will be one of the world's largest concentrated solar power complexes. The whole system includes three related utility-scale concentrated solar power plants and will be located on federally- owned land in the Mojave Desert in southeastern California.

The Ivanpah project will generate approximately 392 gross megawatts (MW) of electricity by using the BrightSource's innovative, proprietary concentrating solar power (CSP) technology, said the Energy Department.

Once operational, the project will produce nearly one million megawatt hours of electricity per year, enough to power over 85, 000 homes, and will avoid over 640,000 tons of carbon dioxide annually, added the Department.

"Today's announcement is creating over 1,000 jobs in California while laying the foundation for thousands more clean energy jobs across the country in the future," said U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu. "Through the loan program we are supporting some of the largest, most innovative clean energy projects in the world, and those investments are helping us to out-compete and out- innovate our global competitors to win the future."

In recent years, the United States has made effort to promote various clean energies. The Department of Energy has issued loan guarantees or offered conditional commitments for loan guarantees totaling over 18 billion U.S. dollars to support 20 clean energy projects in 14 states.