How it started
History
BrightSource was formed with seed capital from VantagePoint Venture Partners. It secured $115 million in additional corporate funding from its Series C round of financing in May 2008, bringing the total the company has raised at that time to over $160 million. Investors include Google.org, BP Alternative Energy, Morgan Stanley, DBL Investors, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Chevron Technology Ventures, Statoil Venture, and Black River. By May 2010, the total amount raised was $337 million.
BrightSource Industries (Israel) Ltd., formerly named Luz II Ltd., is a wholly owned subsidiary of BrightSource Energy, Inc. Based in Israel, BrightSource Industries is responsible for solar technology development, plant design and engineering.
In March 2008, BrightSource entered into a series of power purchase agreements with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) for up to 900 MW of electricity. In February 2009, BrightSource contracted to sell power from seven solar power towers in the Mojave Desert to Southern California Edison (SCE). The plants were to have a combined capacity of 1,300 MW, producing 3.7 billion kilowatt-hours per year. The Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, BrightSource's 377 MW, 3,900-acre (16 km2) plant opened on February 13, 2014.
The total cost of the Ivanpah project was $2.2 billion. The largest investor in the project was NRG Energy, a power generating company based in Princeton, New Jersey, that contributed $300 million. Siemens supplied instrumentation and control systems as well as steam-turbine generators.
In 2009, BrightSource Energy announced plans to build a 960 MW (1,290,000 hp) solar thermal power plant in Coyote Springs that would be on line by 2012. In 2010, BrightSource hired Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs to begin preparations for a public offering in 2011. Its fourth round of equity financing in May netted $150 million, bringing total equity financing to $330 million to date.
From Wikipedia’s article on BrightSource Energy, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3