SolarReserve
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| Private | |
| Industry | Solar thermal power |
| Founded | 2008 |
| Headquarters | Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
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Key people
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Kevin Smith (CEO) |
| Website | SolarReserve.com |
SolarReserve is a developer of utility-scale solar power projects which include Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Photovoltaic (PV) technology. The company has commercialized solar thermal energy storage technology that enables solar power tower CSP plants to deliver electricity day and night. In this technology, a molten salt is used to capture the energy from the sun and store it. When electricity is needed, the stored liquid salt is used to turn water into steam to turn a turbine and generate electricity.
As of May 2015, SolarReserve has developed and secured long-term power contracts for 482 megawatts (MW) of solar projects representing $2.8 billion of project capital, with a development pipeline of more than 6.6 gigawatts (GW) globally.
In addition to its headquarters in Santa Monica, California, SolarReserve has offices in Spain, Chile, South Africa, Turkey, Australia, and the United Arab Emirates.
SolarReserve was formed in early 2008 with seed capital from US Renewables Group, in partnership with United Technologies Corporation (UTC), to commercialize advanced molten salt technology for utility-scale concentrated solar thermal power. This technology was first developed and tested by Rocketdyne for two decades and had more than 100 US and international patents. In September 2008 the company raised an additional $140 million in a Series B funding.
In 2014, SolarReserve acquired ownership from Rocketdyne of its intellectual property rights and patents specifically for molten salt technology for concentrated solar-thermal power and electricity storage, heliostat designs and collector field control systems.
The 110 MW Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project is the world’s first utility-scale facility to use molten salt power tower energy storage. It has 10,347 tracking mirrors (heliostats) that follow the sun and reflect and concentrate sunlight onto a heat exchanger, a receiver, atop a 640-foot (200 m) tower. Crescent Dunes has 10 hours of storage and will deliver 500,000 MW hours of electricity per year, day and night, to 75,000 homes. In September, 2011, SolarReserve received a $737 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the project and broke ground. The project has a 25-year agreement with NV Energy for 100 percent of the electricity. Construction is complete and the project went online in the fall of 2015. Under the rollout plan with NV Energy, the facility will ramp-up over the coming year.
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