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It's difficult to stand out in the competitive solar energy market, but Ausra, an Australian-American company, seems to be successful at setting itself apart from the competition. The California-based Ausra got its name from an ancient Indo-European goddess of the dawn. It is a solar thermal technology company that produces electricity from sunlight with fewer issues compared to the traditional methods, and could even lower the expenses of generating utility-scale power.

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The sun comes to the southwestern US reliably for so many days every year that is is like a beacon to the rising number of solar energy companies around the world. Ausra was founded in Australia a couple years ago but last year they moved to Palo Alto in order to enter the US market. Ausra builds solar thermal technology that focuses sunlight onto pipes filled with water. The sunlight heats the water to steam which then drives turbines to create energy. Nothing too new there. However what Ausra is doing is using large mirrors that are focused on pipes overhead. They call it Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology. Here is what the mirrors look like.

And here is what the power schematic looks like for their plants.

On the drawing board to be built in the next two years is a 1 square mile solar thermal power plant capable of generating 175 mega watts of power. This is utility grade zero carbon power. Ausra has raised $40 million form VC sources for the development of this plant. The impact of this plant on the environment is negligible. You can hardly even see it from a distance unlike some of the solar thermal projects which rely on a tower construction.

I sat down and talked with their Chairman David Mills. He told me how it works and what they hope to accomplish.

Energy Tags: solar power, Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Nov. 5, 2007—Pacific Gas and Electric Company today announced that it has entered into a 177 megawatt solar thermal power purchasing agreement with Ausra Inc. The project, to be located in central California, is being developed by Ausra.

"Today's agreement between PG&E and Ausra highlights how clean energy will create jobs in California while delivering a reliable source of renewable energy," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. "I'm pleased to see California companies rising to the challenge of AB 32, California's historic initiative to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. Clearly, California continues to lead the nation in clean energy research, development and generation."

The plant, to be located in San Luis Obispo County, Calif., is expected to begin generating power in 2010. Ausra has filed its Application for Certification for this plant with the California Energy Commission, which must grant approval before construction begins.

"Solar thermal technology provides our customers with a reliable source of clean renewable energy that is ideally suited to meet peak energy loads," said Fong Wan, vice president of energy procurement, PG&E. "By partnering with Ausra, we are taking another significant step in providing our customers with some of the cleanest energy in the nation."

Ausra projects that the power plant will create over 350 skilled jobs on-site during construction, and an additional 100 permanent jobs in the area. The plant will burn no fuel, use minimal water, and have no air or water emissions. At 177 megawatts of capacity, the project will use only one square mile (640 acres) of land due to the exceptional area efficiency of Ausra's collector technology.

"This 177-megawatt plant is the first manifestation of Ausra and PG&E's shared vision of competitively priced, large-scale solar electric power," said Glen Davis, executive vice president and chief commercial officer of Ausra. "We're excited to be partnering with PG&E to deliver clean power at hours of peak demand."

Ausra's new Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar technology utilizes the heat from the sun's rays to create steam. Solar collectors boil water at high temperatures to power steam turbine generators, in much the same way as traditional fossil-fuel power plants, but without use of fuels or emissions.

At the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in September, PG&E and Ausra announced separate commitments to build and purchase 1,000 MW of solar thermal power over the next five years.

The agreement filed today with the California Public Utilities Commission is the latest example of PG&E's commitment to solar thermal technology. PG&E currently has 553 MW of solar thermal power under contract and is seeking regulatory approval of these purchasing agreements.

PG&E's solar thermal commitments are part of the company's broader renewable energy portfolio. PG&E currently supplies 12 percent of its energy from qualifying renewable sources under California's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) program. PG&E continues to aggressively add renewable electric power resources to its supply and is on target to exceed 20 percent under contract or delivered by 2010. On average, more than 50 percent of the energy PG&E delivers to its customers comes from generating sources that emit no carbon dioxide, providing among the cleanest energy in the nation.

California's RPS Program requires each utility to increase its procurement of eligible renewable generating resources by one percent of load per year to achieve a 20 percent renewables goal by 2010. The RPS Program was passed by the Legislature and is managed by California's Public Utilities Commission and Energy Commission.

About Ausra Ausra Inc. develops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal power technology to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market-competitive, environmentally responsible manner. Located in Palo Alto, Calif., Ausra is a privately held company funded by Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. To learn more about Ausra and solar thermal electric power, visit www.ausra.com.

For more information about Pacific Gas and Electric Company, please visit the company's website at www.pge.com.

Energy Tags: biodiesel, Solar thermal technology

Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers back technology and utility veterans in making renewable energy price competitive with fossil fuels

AlwaysOn GoingGreen Conference, DAVIS, Calif.—Sept. 10, 2007—Ausra Inc., the developer of utility-scale solar thermal power technology, has secured more than $40 million in funding from Silicon Valley venture capital firms Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers (KPCB). The company has assembled a world-class team of solar power scientists, power project developers and financiers to make reliable, large-scale solar thermal power a reality today for electric utilities.

"Worldwide, the electric power industry creates 40 percent of total carbon emissions, and electricity use is rapidly growing. Ausra's technology serves a critical need for utilities seeking large-scale affordable sources of clean power to meet the dual challenges of economic growth and carbon constraints," said Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures and Ausra investor and board member. "Ausra's technology replaces smoke with mirrors by eliminating fuel use for power generation, and sets a new benchmark for the cost and scale of solar power."

Ausra's power plants drive steam turbines with sunshine. Locally manufactured solar concentrators made of steel and glass focus sunlight to boil water, generating high-pressure steam that drives conventional turbine generators. New thermal energy storage systems using pressurized water and low cost materials will provide for on-demand generation day and night. Ausra's core technology, the Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar steam generation system, was originally conceived in the early 1990s by founder David Mills while at Sydney University. Mills later worked with Graham Morrison to develop the idea between 1995 and 2001.

Ausra aims to expedite the utility industry's transition to clean energy, helping utilities meet renewable portfolio standards while keeping rates low and the power on for consumers day and night. "Economic development around the world, coupled with recognition that carbon emissions must rapidly be eliminated, has created an enormous market opportunity for companies that can deliver solar power at large scale and at reasonable cost," says KPCB Partner and Ausra investor and board member Ray Lane. "Solar thermal power is the main event in renewable energy, and Ausra has the deep expertise and a simple, yet effective, design to fully capitalize on the opportunity to deliver the majority of our future power needs."

"We had been working on a wide range of alternatives and kept finding that simpler, cheaper approaches outperformed higher-temperature, more sophisticated designs," says Ausra Chairman David Mills. In 2002, Mills and Morrison founded Solar Heat and Power Pty Ltd. in partnership with Ausra CEO Peter Le Lièvre, and SHP built a successful trial 1 megawatt system in 2004 for Macquarie Generation in New South Wales. A following 38 megawatt CLFR solar field is expected to be complete by 2009.

It was Ausra Executive Vice-President John O'Donnell who brought the founders and investors together in October 2006. They clicked, and Ausra was formed in late 2006 to take the technology to large-scale commercial deployment in the U.S. and worldwide. Le Lièvre recalls, "We found in Khosla Ventures and KPCB a vision that matched ours – a deep understanding of the market and fearlessness about bringing a fundamentally new technology to large scale."

Mills is known internationally for his academic advancements in non-imaging optics, solar thermal energy and concentrator systems. Morrison ran Australia's premier solar test facility and is an expert at both solar collector and solar radiation modeling. Le Lièvre has 20 years of experience as an industrial designer specializing in technical development and financing new ventures. Chief Development Officer Robert Morgan and Chief Commercial Officer Glen Davis are recognized power industry experts, having come to Ausra after significant careers with AES and their consultancy Agile Energy. Together, Morgan and Davis have nearly half-a-century of experience in working with utilities to build and manage large-scale power projects around the world.

About Ausra Ausra, Inc. develops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal power technology to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market-competitive, environmentally responsible manner. Located in Palo Alto, Calif., Ausra is a privately held company funded by Khosla Ventures and Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers. To learn more about Ausra and solar thermal power in general, visit www.ausra.com.

Energy Tags: alternative, solar thermal power

New ViroPOP video- May 2008

Al Gore is planning on making An Inconvenient Truth 2 - but not really, Crocs starts recycling and donating their “shoes”, Green Gorilla will entertain and educate your kids, and we check in on some Green Celebs.

Energy Tags: alternative, solar energy