Arnold Goldman, Chairman of BrightSource Energy

BrightSource Energy is one of the hottest companies in cleantech. Earlier this month BrightSource raised $115 million in a Series C round of financing from investors including Google.org and VantagePoint Venture Partners. In April, the company entered into a series of contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to build up to 900 MW of solar power in California, at a cost of $2-3 billion.

Arnold Goldman is the Chairman and Founder of both BrightSource Energy, based in Oakland, CA, and Luz II, the company's R&D, production and product engineering subsidiary based in Jerusalem.

In a recent interview with the web site Beyond Zero Emissions, Goldman discusses the origins of the company and its solar thermal technology. He explains why BrightSource has moved away from the parabolic troughs used by companies like Solel, and is instead building power plants based on its "Distributed Power Tower" technology consisting of thousands of relatively small mirrors (called heliostats). If you are interested in learning more about the company and solar thermal power, take a look at the online transcript of the interview.

Luz II is currently building a pilot plant in Israel's Negev Desert to test the company's technologies.

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Google and Ormat discussing cooperation

Google is in talks with Ormat about cooperation in the field of renewable energy, Google co-founder Sergey Brin told The Marker in an interview over the weekend.

Brin was in Israel for President Shimon Peres' "Facing Tomorrow" conference. He called Ormat an incredible company and said there are a lot of interesting Israeli companies that work in renewable and alternative energy, as well as electric cars.

According to Ha'aretz, senior Google executives have met with their counterparts from Ormat at two alternative energy conferences, and Larry Page, the other co-founder of Google, visited an Ormat geothermal plant in Desert Peak, Nevada.

Google operates in the alternative energy field through its philanthropic arm, Google.org, and the company hopes to "create utility-scale electricity from clean renewable energy sources that is cheaper than electricity produced from coal."

Just last week, Google.org also participated in the $115 million Series C round of financing for BrightSource Energy, the US parent company of Israeli solar energy technology company Luz II.

Ormat chairman Lucien Bronicki said in response that the meetings with Google are being held on a professional basis in order to advance geothermal technology. The firms are working to advance legislation for geothermal technology development budgets from the U.S. government.

BrightSource Energy raises $115 million in latest round of funding

BrightSource Energy, Inc., the US parent company of Israeli solar energy technology company Luz II, has secured $115 million in additional corporate funding from its Series C round of financing. This brings the total the company has raised to date to over $160 million.

BrightSource said these additional funds will enable it to accelerate its plans to deliver utility-grade solar power at a time when many utilities are searching for reliable sources of renewable energy.

VantagePoint Venture Partners, the company’s initial investor, led the syndicate, which includes Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, StatoilHydro Venture and Black River. All of the company’s existing investors, including Morgan Stanley, DBL Investors (formerly a subsidiary of JP Morgan), Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Chevron Technology Ventures participated in the round.

“The quality of the investors in this round of financing, coupled with increased support from our earlier investors, underscores the confidence that major strategic players have in our ability to reliably generate clean, cost-effective, utility-scale solar power,” said John Woolard, Chief Executive Officer of BrightSource. “We believe in the transformational role of solar energy, and that the broad reach of our new investors will enable us to accelerate the growth of solar thermal into a mainstream energy source.”

“With its unique ability to reliably produce superheated steam at efficient high temperatures, our power tower technology is the strongest commercially viable approach to solar energy,” said Arnold Goldman, chairman and founder, BrightSource Energy, Inc. and Luz II Ltd. “Operating more efficiently than older solar thermal methods, and costing much less to build, our technology will change the way utilities generate electricity.”

In March 2008, BrightSource entered into a series of power purchase agreements with PG&E for up to 900MW of electricity. BrightSource is currently developing a number of solar power plants in the Mojave Desert of Southern California, with construction of the first plant planned to start in 2009.