Earlier this week, Google announced it will invest $168 million in the 370-megawatt (MW) project, which relies on solar thermal technology that’s sometimes informally called the “power tower” (pictured left). This announcement comes after the Internet search company last week made known its $5 million investment in a Germany-based solar energy facility.

Unlike photovoltaic (PV) systems, which convert the sun’s rays directly into electricity, most solar thermal technologies use the sun’s thermal energy to generate steam, which drives turbines that produce electrical current. The Ivanpah project will incorporate three such turbines that, according to the Economist, will “have a greater capacity than all the utility scale photovoltaic plants yet built in America.”

Talk about gigante. When completed, the project will be one of the largest solar installations the world has ever seen and will provide clean, renewable energy to 85,000 California homes.

It’s unlikely such an ambitious project would be possible without government backing. Indeed, the Department of Energy on Monday announced it had finalized $1.6 billion in loan guarantees to support the project, which is sponsored by BrightSource Energy, a California-based solar power project developer.

California Senator Dianne Feinstein offered the following remarks on the loan guarantee’s recent approval:

With this $1.6 billion loan guarantee, BrightSource Energy will complete construction of a solar energy facility that will create more than 1,000 California jobs and provide clean power to 85,000 homes. This is the Energy Department’s first solar generation loan in California and I hope it will be followed by many more. I believe we must support and nurture the solar industry, and the only way the vast majority of these projects will become reality is through the federal loan guarantee program.

Given its size, location and relative novelty, the Ivanpah solar project has attracted its fair share of naysayers. Conservationists have tried to block the project in court, citing concerns over the project’s impact on the local desert habitat. And free marketers will no doubt balk at the federal government’s role in providing loan guarantees (not to be confused with providing loans or direct subsidies).

Nevertheless, Brightsource has proved an adept developer, reducing the plant’s footprint to minimize environmental impact, working to relocate desert tortoises (one of the conservationists’ main points of focus) and offering to fund land conservation efforts elsewhere in the Mojave Desert.

Despite challenges, it seems Ivanpah’s power towers will continue to rise in the California desert.

Image cred: Brightsource.

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Before we dig into the details, a little clarification. Solar photovoltaics (PV), like the clean energy systems most commonly seen atop houses, produce energy by using semiconductors like silicon to generate electricity. Solar thermal plants, in contrast, use mirrors to direct sunlight onto liquid-filled tubes. That produces enough steam to turn a turbine and churn out energy.  Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s move on.

The report notes that, on one hand, there is strong interest in solar thermal technology these days, evident by the nine solar thermal plants approved for construction in the California desert in recent months. The plants are expected to have a combined capacity of 4,100 megawatts (MW) and will help the state’s three main investor-owned utilities (IOUs) — Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) — reach a state mandate of obtaining at least 33 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020. Why so many solar thermal plants? They’re more efficient than the PV variety and, as a result, produce energy at a cheaper rate.

But while California drives the industry’s growth, its demise, according to the report, is slowly taking shape over 100,000 miles away in China, where manufacturers have driven the cost of PV down by 50 percent in the last two years. The decline in PV cost, combined with its proven methods, has steered utility companies away from entering into power purchasing agreements (PPAs) with some of those large scale solar thermal plants. After all, why buy more expensive power from a relatively unproven source when a cheaper, proven option may soon be on its way?

Granted, there are many factors that will play a role in either the rise or fall of solar thermal, including renewable energy goals. California’s 33 percent by 2020 goal is among the most ambitious in the nation, and the state will likely require a combination of both PV and solar thermal to meet that goal. What happens after the 2020 deadline is any one’s guess.

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1. Establish a fully funded program aimed at installing 5,000 megawatts (MW) of solar energy capacity within the state by 2025: New York solar energy industry leaders would like to be in the same bracket with California and New Jersey in terms of solar energy capacity. In order to do this, the state will have to secure funding to help alleviate some of the cost of solar energy for New Yorkers.

2. Generate 2,000 MW of solar thermal to replace oil and natural gas by 2020: This would make a huge difference because New York has one of the highest energy consumption rates out of all states in the country.

3. Establish New York’s first solar thermal incentive program to promote water heating using solar energy: New York currently has no state incentive program to help home and business owners with the cost of installing a solar thermal system. The goal here is to fund a program with $25 million in incentive funds to spread out over the course of five years.

4. Pass the New York Solar Jobs Act: The New York Solar Jobs Act would create over 22,000 jobs over the next 15 years and, according to the Central New York Business Journal, would generate around $20 billion in economic return over that same period. The Act is also intended to help meet the state’s 5,000 MW by 2025 goal, including benchmarks of 500 MW by 2015 and 1,500 MW by 2020.

So how do all these fancy acts and solar capacity benchmarks relate to you, the New York property owner? You’ll likely see more incentive programs designed to help you pay for a solar energy system. You can find a list of current incentives here. And for a full review of the NYSEIA’s goals for 2011 and beyond, visit their site here.

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The South Carolina Energy Office has awarded a grant to help install solar hot water systems atop 60 homes in the state. The systems will be made by Velux — a Greensville, South Carolina-based solar water heated manufacturer. Once the systems are fully in place, Velux and Southern Energy Management, an installation company, will track the effectiveness of the systems in terms of monthly savings on utility bills. We haven’t identified all the homes chosen to participate, but we do know that one belongs to Clover, South Carolina resident Ken Newell:

“I was very thrilled when I found out we had been selected. In a tough economy, especially for people in the architecture and construction industry like I am, anything that can save money is a real godsend. I’m going to be very interested to see my power bill.”

The pilot program is an effort to get state legislators to back more renewable energy projects in the next fiscal year by showing them how much South Carolina citizens can benefit from such a system. Velux’s solar thermal systems should help that cause, as they are expected to account for about 75 percent of each home’s hot water needs. The sample data collected over the course of a year will be used to estimate how much money state homeowners can save on a much larger scale.

It is estimated that 25 percent of a household’s utility bill goes to pay for hot water, so it’s likely that these residents will see significant savings. Let’s hope it’s enough to convince South Carolina lawmakers to invest more in solar power.

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One is the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project, whose developers earlier today earned federal approval for construction. The plant will be built by SolarReserve — a Santa Monica, California-based solar construction company that last week received approval to build a 150-megawatt (MW) Rice Solar Energy Project in southern California.

At 110-MW, the Crescent Dunes project is a bit smaller, but will still have a large impact on the surrounding economy. Beyond producing enough energy at peak output to meet the energy requirements of roughly 75,000 average American homes each year, Crescent Dunes will also create about 450 construction jobs.

The second major announcement included another California solar power project developer, Sustainable Energy Capital Partners (SECP), which revealed its plan to partner with POSCO Power to build a 300-MW solar installation in Boulder City, Nevada. Following completion, the Boulder City solar plant will be able to power about 135,000 average American homes each year. If all goes well, the plant should be up and running by the middle of 2011.

While POSCO Power and SECP are touting the venture as the biggest solar power plant in the world, it probably won’t be for long. If all goes according to plan, the Blythe Solar Power Plant in Riverside County, California, will have a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts — or one gigawatt.

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Nope — these don’t look like the panels that grace the rooftops of homes and buildings to generate clean electricity. Parabolic troughs are solar thermal technology: they use the sun’s heat to directly generate energy. Photovoltaic (PV) panels take a different approach, using panel materials to create an electric current without utilizing heat. These parabolic troughs, and solar thermal electricity in general, are used in large, utility-scale solar farms.

They function by concentrating heat from the sun onto a receiver pipe in the center of the parabolic curve (see the horizontal grey pipe above). The curved surface allows the system to concentrate heat to 30-60 times its natural intensity, and this heat is transferred to the synthetic oil circulating through the receiver pipe. This heated liquid is then sent through a heat exchanger, producing steam that spins a turbine and generates electricity.

Solar trough predominate utility scale solar plants in the United States, and 2010 actually marks the 25th anniversary of the first solar trough technology implemented domestically. This solar plant in the Mojave Desert achieves daily net efficiencies close to 20 percent.

For a seemingly strange-looking solar technology, parabolic troughs play a fairly significant role in the solar market.

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It’s not because lawmakers fail to recognize the benefits of such a plant. Ivanpah, when fully operational, will be able to power 140,000 average American homes each year. It will be, by far, the largest such plant in the the world and, according to the New American, it will more than double the amount of domestically produced commercial solar thermal power. Construction of Ivanpah alone will create 1,000 jobs and, combined with eight other solar thermal projects, will give birth to approximately 8,000 clean energy American jobs.

But the two financial incentives that played a key role in making the Ivanpah project possible will soon expire. The government loan guarantee program will expire next September and the opportunity to receive the 30 percent tax credit in cash form will end this calendar year. And with the two programs unlikely to be extended regardless of which political party takes control on election day, a high-unemployment, cash-starved state like California is unlikely to pick up the tab left behind by the expired incentive programs. Add that to that the fact the electricity from solar thermal plants — which produce energy at 13-17 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) — is competitively priced but still higher than power generated by natural gas, and you may question how many solar thermal plants will be built in the near future. Consequently, there’s doubt as to whether lenders will back similar endeavors in the future.

Then there’s also the entire wildlife issue, which has some environmentalists so fired up that they’re threatening to sue BrightSource for disturbing the habitat of lizards and tortoises in the area. While it’s unclear whether a lawsuit would be successful in hampering construction, it does force Californians — and Americans in general — to consider the balance between the preservation of local habitats and the creation of clean energy and green jobs.

So you tell us: Do the benefits of clean energy outweigh the cost of relocating species whose habitats are being built over?

Check out other Ivanpah-related stories from GetSolar:

• After Panel Approval, Ivanpah Ready for Public Comment
• Mojave Solar Power Project Scaled Back

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Like many other plants being built on California desert land, the Calico Plant has raised questions its potential impact on wildlife in the area. This time, environmentalists are worried about the bighorn sheep that live in the mountains just above the 4,600 acres on which the plant will be built.

But in the end, the powers that be decided the benefits of the plant outweigh the negatives. According to the U.S. Department of Interior, the Calico Plant will cost over $2 billion to build and will be able to power anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 homes every year when it’s fully functional in the late 2011 calendar year. Calico is one of four plants that the CEC and Department of Interior have recently approved. The others are being developed by Abengoa, NextEra Energy and Solar Millennium.

The Calico plant will use the SunCatcher — a type of solar thermal technology that uses mirrored dishes to turn sunlight into electricity. Since the plant will rest on public land, Tessera also needed to gain approval from federal officials. That approval came on October 20th. Including this latest plant, exactly 3,492.5 MW of solar capacity have been approved for construction in the California desert.

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As clean energy developers aim to construct on California’s vast stretches of arid land solar energy plants the size of small villages, environmentalists have fought to protect two endangered species in the California: the desert tortoise and Mojave fringe-toed lizard.

On Monday, both sides got their wish. Solar Millennium LLC in Oakland, California — which will partner with Ferrostaal AG to build the largest solar thermal plant in the world — has agreed to fund a conservation project to provide refuge to the two animals during the plant’s construction.

And with that agreement in place, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar yesterday approved construction of the $6-billion Blythe Solar Power Project. To be sited 216 miles east of Los Angeles, the project is the sixth solar energy installation approved to be built on public lands. For its conservation efforts, Solar Millennium has gained the backing of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

The Blythe solar power project will span over 7,000 acres and have a generating capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW). In the future, additional capacity may bring that figure to 2,800 MW. Solar thermal plants differ from photovoltaic (PV) plants in that they use mirrors to concentrate the sun’s energy. The configuration at Blythe will focus the sun’s rays onto tubes that will carry heat into a boiler and eventually pass steam into a turbine. Photovoltaic (PV) plants, by contrast, use panels — or “modules” — that convert sunlight directly into electricity.

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That all changed this week as the CPUC finally approved the PPA, giving the green light for SolarReserve to begin constructing the 150-megawatt (MW) solar thermal plant that is expected to generate 450,000 megawatt-hours (mWh) of solar energy each year. That’s enough to power the equivalent of 68,000 average American homes for a full year.

The plant will be built on private land and feature a storage capacity of up to 10 hours of solar energy. Consequently, the plant will still be able to pump out electricity when cloudy days roll through in the upcoming fall and winter seasons.

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