by Shane Henson — September 2, 2011—Facilities managers in the area served by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company who are seeking to obtain their buildings’ electricity from renewable energy sources will benefit from a new solar project to be located in Riverside County, California, that will significantly boost the U.S. production of this type of solar power.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently announced that the Department of Energy (DOE) has finalized a partial guarantee for an $852 million loan to support the development of the Genesis Solar Project. The Genesis Solar Project is a 250 megawatt (MW) parabolic trough concentrating solar power (CSP) facility that will increase the nation’s currently installed CSP capacity by about 50 percent.
According to the DOE, the partial loan guarantee will support a utility-scale deployment of proven and scalable parabolic trough solar thermal technology that has been used commercially for more than two decades. The project is expected to produce enough electricity to power over 48,000 homes and avoid over 320,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
Power from the project will be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric Company. The lender-applicant, Credit Suisse AG, submitted the application under the Financial Institution Partnership Program (FIPP). Through FIPP financing, the Department of Energy guarantees up to 80 percent of the eligible costs of a loan provided to a renewable energy project by qualified financial institutions.
NextEra Energy Resources, the project sponsor, estimates it will fund approximately 800 construction jobs and 47 operating jobs. The project is located on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Riverside County, California.
