By Oliver M. Bayani

An artist’s rendition of the Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System. Image by BrightSource, Inc.

Solar thermal startup BrightSource Inc. has filed with California regulators for the construction of its second utility-scale solar power project with a new plant design meant to avoid environmental permitting problems that have slowed development of its first.

The project, called Hidden Hills Solar Electric Generating System, will be divided into two facilities each generating 250 megawatts in Iyo County, California on the Nevada border. The site is approximately 18 miles south of Pahrump, Nevada and 45 miles west of Las Vegas, Nevada.

The project is now under review of the California Energy Commission after BrightSource submitted a certification application last Friday.

The two solar thermal power plants will generate power for Pacific Gas & Electric under two power purchase agreements approved by the commission in 2010. The company has yet to disclose the cost of the project.

The company estimates that the energy from the plant would be enough to power 178,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 500,000 tons annually.

Unlike its first project, called Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, which was built on public land overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, Hidden Hills will be built on private land – possibly making regulatory approval faster by reducing some federal permits and paperwork required.

Hidden Hills is scheduled to be completed in 2015. In contrast, it took more than three years for state and federal regulators to approve the Ivanpah project, its first utility scale solar thermal plant claimed to be the world’s largest at 392 MW.

Construction on Ivanpah began last October but could have started sooner after environment-related concerns slowed down progress. Issues raised included land use, the amount of water it will use and the impact of its construction on an endangered species of desert tortoise and plants.

All of BrightSource’s solar thermal plants use fields of solar mirrors called heliostats that focus the sun’s rays on water-filled boilers on top of a tower. The heat caused the water to boil and produce steam, which then piped to drive electric turbines.

To address problems raised by Ivanpah, engineers at BrightSource increased the height of the tower from 450 feet used in the previous plant to 750 feet to position heliostats closer together aligned at a steeper angle, the company stated in its license application.

The company said the design cuts land use by one third compared to a typical solar photovoltaic farm and parabolic trough solar thermal plants. BrightSource also plans to further minimize the environmental impact of the mirrors by placing them on top of individual poles, leaving the ground underneath them open.

To conserve water, the Hidden Hills project will use an air-based cooling system similar to Ivanpah used to convert the steam back into water. Hidden Hills will just use 140 acre feet of water per year, less than ten percent of the total amount of water used in competing solar thermal technologies with water-based cooling, according to BrightSource.

BrightSource on Wednesday announced it would offer molten salt storage in its power plants to extend its operating hours past sunset. The company did not mention if Hidden Hills will use the system but would most likely depend on the request of PG&E.

The company has yet to announce how it will finance the project but is expected to be pricey since Ivanpah, which is 20 percent smaller than Hidden Hills in generating capacity, had a price tag of $1.967 billion.

BrighSource used a mix of federal loans and private equity from investors such as NRG Energy and Google for Ivanpah, which should be built in 2013. The company could also use money raised from its recent initial public offering in Nasdaq last April.

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