The firm will provide technology and assistance in setting up a series of solar farms for China, in the nation's first big venture into solar thermal power production.
ESolar Inc. of Pasadena signed an agreement Friday to build a series of solar thermal power plants in China with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts, in one of the largest renewable energy deals of its kind.
Coming four months after an Arizona company, First Solar, secured a contract to build an equally large photovoltaic power plant in China, the ESolar deal signals China's emergence as a major market for renewable energy.
"They're moving very fast, much faster than the state and U.S. governments are moving," said Bill Gross, ESolar's chairman and the founder of Idealab.
Under the agreement, ESolar will provide China Shandong Penglai Electric Power Equipment Manufacturing Co. the technology and expertise to build solar "power tower" plants over the next decade. Those solar farms would generate a total of 2,000 megawatts of electricity; at peak output that would be equivalent to a large nuclear power plant. The terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The initial project, which includes a 92-megawatt solar power plant to be built this year, will be located in the 66-square-mile Yulin Energy Park in the Mongolian desert in northern China. The region has become a hot spot for renewable energy, with the 2,000-megawatt First Solar project planned 60 miles to the north.
Penglai Electric will manage the ESolar power plants' construction and another firm, China Shaanxi Yulin Huayang New Energy Co., will own and operate the first projects.
Although China is the world leader in producing photovoltaic panels such as those found on residential rooftops, the ESolar deal is the country's first big venture into large-scale solar thermal power production.
ESolar's power plants use fields of mirrors called heliostats to focus the sun's rays on a water-filled receiver that sits atop a slender tower. The intense heat vaporizes the water, and the resulting high-pressure steam drives an electricity-generating turbine.
"We chose ESolar because of its demonstration in commercial maturity, sustainability and long-term potential to compete against fossil fuel," Eric Wang, a Penglai Electric spokesman, wrote in an e-mail from Beijing, where the deal was signed.
ESolar already manufactures its heliostat arrays in China, and under the terms of the agreement with Penglai it will also build its power plant receivers there. Gross said that ESolar would retain control of the intellectual property behind the technology's design and operation.
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