Amid much fanfare, Ausra Incorporated unveiled the plant off Kimberlina Road in October, 2008. Testing to prove it works lasted nearly a year. In that time, Ausra was puchased by France-based Areva, the world's largest builder of atomic reactors.
On Wednesday, Areva Solar rolls out the red carpet for more than 100 guests, engineers representing utilities from around the world. "We're proud of what we've done here and want to show it off. We want to show the techies that this technology is real, it works and it's reliable," says Bob Fishman, areva solar ceo.
The five megawatt plant has been selling electricity to California's wholesale market since last spring. And it's growing, adding another boiler that will generate 30% more electricity. "We've also put some instruments into the design on boiler number four that will give us some things to learn so that when we build boiler number five, it'll be even better," said Fishman.
And unlike conventional "solar power farms" which heat oil to make steam the plant creates steam directly from sunlight and water. "The biggest thing that sets us apart from the competition is the simplicity of this design. Because it's modular, with a set of segments, it allows us to build up a large scale power plant from smaller proven components," said Bill Conlon, Sr. V.P., Areva Solar.
"The power plant's operated extremely reliably and we want to make sure our customers understand that. Not only does it make the amount of steam it does but it does it day in and day out," Fishman added.
And while Areva says its technology is sound, and even superior to other forms of solar power, true success may be measured by the numbers of customers who buy into this brand of electricity generation in the future.
