Image Credit: BrightSource Energy

Today, BrightSource Energy and PG&E signed an agreement for the utility to take delivery of and distribute 500MWe of electricity from 3 proposed solar thermal plants in California. Power delivery could begin as early as 2011 and when fully online, the project is anticipated to deliver up to 1.2GWh of power per year into the grid.

Options for 400MW more power exist in the contract and that could push generation to over 2GWh per year from the aggregated projects.