Solar on the march

Sunday, April 13, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

Another company has chosen our region as the site for a solar energy complex, which means we are moving toward a reputation well within our grasp — that of being the nation’s clean energy capital.

BrightSource Energy of Oakland, Calif., is planning to build three solar plants just across the California border from Primm, about 40 miles south of Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Sun’s sister publication, In Business Las Vegas, reports in its current edition that the complex’s first phase is scheduled for completion in 2011.

When finished, the complex will have a generating capacity of 400 megawatts. Its power will be sold to Pacific Gas and Electric, the San Francisco utility that provides power to central and northern California.

In Business reporter Stephanie Tavares reports that BrightSource is evaluating 35,000 acres in Nevada and other states as possible sites for more plants. Privately held BrightSource’s investors include Morgan Stanley, J.P. Morgan and Chevron Technology Ventures.

BrightSource’s founder and chairman, Arnold Goldman, also founded the former Luz International Co., which in the 1980s built nine solar electricity-generating stations in California that are still in operation.

This latest announcement comes just four months after Ausra Inc., another California developer of solar plants, announced it was building a 130,000-square-foot manufacturing and distribution plant here in Clark County, near the new Town Square development off Las Vegas Boulevard South and Sunset Road.

“We chose to locate in Nevada because it is the center of America’s solar energy future,” Ausra officials said in a Dec. 13 news release.

Contributing to that outlook is Nevada Solar One, a 64-megawatt solar plant in the Eldorado Valley outside Boulder City, and a solar facility at Nellis Air Force Base that will provide 30 percent of the base’s power.

The Southern Nevada region is rapidly coming to the attention of solar energy companies at a time when solar technology is advancing and awareness of the environmental problems of coal, oil and nuclear power has never been higher. The timing is right for a solar growth spurt here that could boost our economy and clean the environment at the same time.