PG&E Teams With NRG Energy and eSolar for 92 Megawatts of Solar Thermal Power
25 Juin 2009 - 7:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
Project Features Unique Modular Technology to Speed Delivery of
Clean Energy to Utility Customers SAN FRANCISCO, June 25
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company
(PG&E) announced today that it has entered into an agreement
with Alpine SunTower, LLC, a subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc.
(NYSE:NRG), for 92 megawatts (MW) of renewable, solar thermal
power. The Alpine SunTower project features eSolar's modular,
scalable solar thermal technology and is scheduled for completion
in 2012. The project will be located near Lancaster, Calif. and
will produce approximately 192 gigawatt-hours of electricity each
year. This is equal to the annual consumption of nearly 30,000
average homes. "PG&E is collaborating with NRG and eSolar to
serve our customers' future energy needs and respond to their
demand for renewable resources," said Fong Wan, senior vice
president of energy procurement for PG&E. "The combination of
NRG's proven development skills and eSolar's innovative technology
can provide our customers with clean, affordable energy." The
project announced today is part of eSolar and NRG's recently
announced plans to develop up to 500 MW of solar thermal power in
California and across the Southwestern United States. "NRG is very
pleased to be working hand-in-hand with PG&E, a utility at the
forefront of bringing green solutions to the electricity sector, to
deploy at scale eSolar's exciting new solar technology," said David
Crane, NRG's president and chief executive officer. "As we enter
the hot summer months, we are reminded that solar power has a key
role to play in helping meet peak demands in California." Solar
thermal power generates electricity by converting solar energy to
heat, which boils water to create steam that turns a turbine. The
spinning turbine then generates electricity like a traditional
steam plant but without burning fuel or causing emissions, such as
greenhouse gases. eSolar's concentrating solar power projects
feature a proprietary combination of optics and software in a
pre-fabricated form factor for cost-effective scalability. Its
scalable plants will be built in 46 MW unit solutions, each of
which requires one quarter square mile of land. "With the only
operating solar power tower technology in the U.S., this new
agreement with world-class utility PG&E points to the success
of NRG and eSolar to develop solar thermal generation," said Bill
Gross, CEO of eSolar. "eSolar's power towers can be designed in
variable configurations and are easily scalable to meet the growing
and evolving needs of forward-looking power providers like
PG&E." Since 2002, PG&E has entered into contracts for more
than 20 percent of its future electric power deliveries from
renewable sources. On average, half of the electricity PG&E
delivers to its customers comes from carbon-free generating
sources, making the company's energy some of the cleanest consumed
by any electric utility customers in the nation. About Pacific Gas
and Electric Company Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary
of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is one of the largest combined
natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in
San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of
the nation's cleanest energy to 15 million people in northern and
central California. For more information, visit
http://www.pge.com/about/. About eSolar eSolar is an Idealab
company founded by CEO Asif Ansari in 2007 to develop, construct
and deploy modular, scalable solar thermal power plants. eSolar's
approach marries a low-impact, pre-fabricated form factor with
advanced optics and computer software engineering to meet the
demands of utilities of any size for clean, renewable and
cost-competitive solar energy. By focusing on the key business
obstacles that have characterized large solar installations -
price, scalability, speed of deployment and grid impact - eSolar
has developed a proprietary solution to make a dramatic reduction
in the cost of solar thermal technology. eSolar is based in
Pasadena, California and has 76 employees. For more information
please visit http://www.esolar.com/. About NRG NRG Energy, Inc., a
Fortune 500 company, owns and operates one of the country's largest
and most diverse power generation portfolios. Headquartered in
Princeton, NJ, the Company's power plants provide more than 24,000
megawatts of generation capacity, enough to supply more than 20
million homes. NRG's retail business, Reliant Energy, serves more
than 1.7 million residential, business, commercial and industrial
customers in Texas. A past recipient of the energy industry's
highest honors--Platts Industry Leadership and Energy Company of
the Year awards, NRG is a member of the U.S. Climate Action
Partnership (USCAP), a group of business and environmental
organizations calling for mandatory legislation to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. More information is available at
http://www.nrgenergy.com/. Safe Harbor Disclosure This news release
contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section
27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements are subject
to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions and include
statements regarding solar power development and typically can be
identified by the use of words such as "will," "expect,"
"estimate," "anticipate," "forecast," "plan," "believe" and similar
terms. Although NRG believes that its expectations are reasonable,
it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have
been correct, and actual results may vary materially. Factors that
could cause actual results to differ materially from those
contemplated above include, among others, general economic
conditions, hazards customary in the power industry, weather
conditions, competition in wholesale power markets, the volatility
of energy and fuel prices, failure of customers to perform under
contracts, changes in the wholesale power markets, changes in
government regulation of markets and of environmental emissions,
unanticipated outages at our generation facilities, adverse results
in current and future litigation, and the inability to implement
value enhancing improvements to plant operations and companywide
processes. NRG undertakes no obligation to update or revise any
forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information,
future events or otherwise. The foregoing review of factors that
could cause NRG's actual results to differ materially from those
contemplated in the forward-looking statements included herein
should be considered in connection with information regarding risks
and uncertainties that may affect NRG's future results included in
NRG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at
http://www.sec.gov/. DATASOURCE: Pacific Gas and Electric Company
CONTACT: PG&E External Communications, +1-415-973-5930; or
Caitlin Cieslik-Miskimen of eSolar, +1-415-977-1922; or David Knox
of NRG, +1-713-795-6106, cell, +1-713-824-6445 Web Site:
http://www.pge.com/ http://www.esolar.com/
http://www.nrgenergy.com/
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