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Alternative Energy - Monday, September 10, 2007

VC Bigs Invest $40M In Solar Thermal Power Plant Startup

$40M is an adventurous amount for a startup to raise in its first round. But Palo Alto-based Ausra has major expenses as it plans utility scale solar plants. Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins put up the money.

The company appears to have been funded late last year. Ausra was founded in 2002 when its founders launched Solar Heat and Power which built a trial 1 megawatt system in 2004 for Macquarie Generation in New South Wales. A 38 megawatt CLFR solar field is expected to be complete by 2009. Ausra emerged in Palo Alto in October 2006. Ausra says it hopes to build somewhere in California the largest solar thermal plant in the US.

Ausra's power plants drive steam turbines from sun light. Solar concentrators made of steel and glass focus sunlight to boil water, generating high-pressure steam that drives conventional turbine generators. Its thermal energy storage systems using pressurized water will provide for on-demand generation. They will sell the electricity to other utilities that either want to be more green for PR reasons or are mandated to do so.

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