Ausra, a developer of utility-scale solar thermal power headquartered in Palo Alto, Califronia, has officially opened the reflector production line of its first North American manufacturing and distribution center in Las Vegas.
The 130,000-square-foot, automated manufacturing and distribution center will supply the reflectors, absorber tubes, and other key components of the company’s solar thermal power plants.
U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Ausra President and CEO Robert Fishman officially started the reflector production line. They were joined by Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) President Rhone Resch, Nevada Development Authority (NDA) President & CEO Somer Hollingsworth, and a bipartisan group of southern Nevada government and business leaders in opening the factory line–the first of its kind in the United States.
In November 2007, Ausra and California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced a power purchase agreement for a 177-megawatt (MW) solar thermal power plant to be built in central California. The power plant will generate enough electricity to power more than 120,000 homes.
Ausra’s Las Vegas manufacturing center will make solar field equipment for the PG&E project, for other power projects throughout the American Southwest, and for Ausra’s process steam customers, who are adopting solar thermal power to lower their fuel costs and emissions in their operations, including food processing, enhanced oil recovery and refining, and pulp and paper manufacturing.
The Las Vegas facility will employ a staff of 50. At full capacity, it will annually produce more than 700 MW of solar collectors–enough to power nearly half a million homes, and keep 1,400 construction workers employed building solar power plants, the company said.
Ausra’s Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector solar technology captures the sun’s power to produce electricity without pollution. Mirrors focus sunlight to heat water pipes, and the resulting steam drives a turbine to generate electricity.
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