CSP World

According to an article published at Bloomberg Businessweek, BrightSource Energy would be interested to buy assets from Solar Millenium's subsidiary, Solar Trust of America, from its Palen CSP project in California.

Solar Trust of America, a joint venture of German company Solar Millennium and Ferrostaal AG, to develop CSP plants in the US, filled for bankruptcy last April. It was developing its flagship project, the 1,000 MW Blythe CSP plant, and the 500 MW Palen CSP plant.

The Bloomberg report says Solar Trust has asked a bankruptcy court to schedule a June 15 hearing to approve BrightSource as a stalking-horse bidder for its Palen project in Riverside County, California.

BrightSource is currently building the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generation System, a 392 MW (gross) CSP plant comprised by three power towers, this will be the largest CSP plant in the US when completed. Moreover, BrightSource is developing more CSP plants, the Hidden Hills SEGS, a 500 MW plant and the Rio Mesa project, a 750 MW plant, all of them with central receiver (power tower) technology.

The Palen project is a proposed 500 MW CSP plant with parabolic trough technology, it is comprised by two 250 MW units with dry cooling. Solar Millenium filled an Application For Certification on 2009 and it was approved by the California Energy Commission by December 2010. 

BrightSource, which withdrew an IPO last April, will be the main CSP developer in the US, with 392 MW in construction and 1,250 MW in development. Abengoa is building two plants amounting 560 MW, SolarReserve is building a 110 MW power tower plant and 350 MW in planned plants and Nextera is building a 250 MW plant.