by Brianna Crandall — February 26, 2014—The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant, officially opened in California on February 13 with participation from U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz.
As the first commercial deployment of innovative power tower CSP technology in the United States, the Ivanpah project was the recipient of a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the DOE’s Loan Programs Office. The LPO portfolio includes one of the world’s largest wind farms; several of the world’s largest solar generation and thermal energy storage systems; the first new commercial nuclear power plant in the USA in three decades; and more than a dozen new or retooled auto manufacturing plants across the country.
Ivanpah has the capacity to generate 392 megawatts of electricity—enough to power 94,400 average American homes—most of which will be sold under long-term power purchase agreements to Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison Company. The project is a joint effort by NRG, Google, and BrightSource Energy.
Ivanpah is one of five CSP projects that received loan guarantees from the Energy Department. When these projects are completed, they will provide a combined 1.26 gigawatts of electric capacity. These loan guarantees are also helping to finance the first solar thermal storage project and the first power tower with solar thermal storage in the United States, as well as some of the world’s largest parabolic trough CSP plants, according to the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
