Solar-to-salt energy start-up gets $140 million in financing

From Times staff writer Edward Silver:

Money may be evaporating on Wall Street, but $140 million is on its way into the accounts of a promising Santa Monica-based solar start-up.

SolarReserve, an offshoot of aerospace giant Rocketdyne, tackles the challenge of intermittency -- storing energy when the sun don’t shine.

At the core of the utility-scale solution is a simple substance: salt, specifically a combination of sodium and potassium nitrate. It’s the inventive way the salt is used that prodded venture investors to reach for their checkbooks this week to provide second-round financing for the firm.

In SolarReserve’s blueprint, arrays of specialized mirrors, called heliostats, track the sun’s path and concentrate the heat on receiving towers that turn the salt molten. The salt holds its heat long enough to enable electric power companies to shift their output to peak times or nighttime. That power can fetch a premium price when demand is most intense and coal typically fills the bill.

Chief Executive Terry Murphy plugs the flexibility of the system, a traditional weak spot for renewables: "If you put energy into molten salt, you can store it in an insulated tank and use it on demand. We liken it to pumped solar," he said.

The technique proved itself in the Solar Two test project in the California desert, sponsored by the Department of Energy. Rocketdyne crafted some of the key technology for Solar Two and will equip SolarReserve’s expansive plants.

Rocketdyne, the Canoga Park unit of United Technologies Corp., has a storied history with the space shuttle and Apollo projects, flashing credibility in the minds of its offshoot’s financiers.

SolarReserve sees itself as the commercializer. The firm is studying sunny patches in the U.S. and Europe as potential generation sites. Though utilities just about everywhere are eager to bring more solar online, Murphy sees the Mediterranean region as more fertile ground than California. That’s partly because governments there cut better deals. In this country, the production tax credit is in limbo, and there’s no shortage of permitting hitches in California, he says.

The start-up has plenty of planning and building ahead of it. Murphy’s target for power to the grid is late 2012 or early 2013.

U.S. Renewables Group, SolarReserve’s founding investor, is near the firm on Olympic Boulevard. Other backers include Citi Alternative Investments, Sustainable Development Investments, Good Energies and Credit Suisse.

Photo: Pour it in, power up. Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[kerry bradshaw]

It's certainly true that solar thermal can store energy for use during peak demand, but there are more than a few days when the sun don't shine and there wil be no power. Therefore solar thermal cannot eliminate the need for backup power capacity or allow plants to be shuttered, yet another reason why nuclear is superior to all alternative energy technologies.

[Alan]

The molten salt technology can store energy for up to three months, providing all the backup power capacity one would need.

[Calvin]

Question is not how LONG can molten salt technology store the energy but how MUCH.

[fireofenergy]

Expand the mirror field and the heat reservoir. It would cost more but there would be more capacity, like over 50%. I would think that 8 hours during day and an additional 6 hours from storage. That 6 hours could be held for many days with only a few percent loss, a possible strategic move in conjunction with dying winds (and power) from a storm.

[Peter Faletra]

Having worked at the Director level at the US Dept. of Energy, I can speak from some direct experience. The president's budget sent to congress and the congressional fractured interests driven largely by local interests of states in bringing money to their constituents, severely limits the DOE from having a genuine science-based review and funding process of the most promising energy generating technologies. Steve Chu, was trying for his entire stint at the DOE Berkeley National Lab to initiate a strong alternative energy program that was driven by the scientific evidence and not political winds. This eventually drove him to seek private funding from BP after years of being turned down. Then, Undersecretary Ray Orbach, did the bidding of the Bush administration and obstructed these efforts for his 6 years as head of the Office of Science. So here we are in the worst of economic times continuing to debate the best approaches for the nation without a clear coherent scientifically evidenced approach. I am certain Steve Chu will do about as good a job as can be done in advancing energy independence for the US, but he has some severe challenges. One of the most problematic are those "grants" that go to support alternative energy approaches that are not really new like the one highlighted here. There are already a march of private businesses visiting the DOE in their typical scouting missions to find out how they will access the almost 40 billion of dollars the "stimulus" package proposes to be used to help in this regard. Chu has admitted this is a serious challenge. The DOE does not have the level of experienced personnel to properly peer review grants and contracts of this magnitude. It will also distract the DOE from being able to manage the science and energy programs for which it is already responsible.