[The Vector] $1.45 Billion in Financing for Abengoa Solar

Abengoa Solar announced recently that it has finalized $1.45 billion in financing to build the world’s largest parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant. Called Solana, the new project will be located about 70 miles southwest of Phoenix, Arizona. Abengoa signed a power purchase agreement with Arizona Public Service Co to. buy the energy produced by Solana for a 30 year term. Arizona Public Service Co is Arizona’s largest electric utility.

About 1,700 new construction jobs are being created with the project, and more than 85 are permanent jobs. In addition, a mirror manufacturing factory will be built nearby in order to supply materials for the plant, and will employ an additional 180 people.  Abengoa said about 75% of the equipment and supplies for the solar plant will be manufactured in the U.S.   Energy generated from the plant will be 250 MW, serving about 70,000 households.

Solana is exciting because it is the first large-scale solar plant that will be capable of storing the energy it makes. Using molten salt thermal storage, energy can be deployed even on cloudy days or at night.  In Arizona, this helps because in the brutal summer heat, there is peak demand for air conditioning at the end of the day and early evening.

This will be Abengoa’s fourteenth concentrating solar power (CSP) plant worldwide. The company is active – it is currently building 930 MW of solar plants worldwide, and it have about 193 MW already operating. Headquartered in Denver, Abengoa has offices in Arizona, California and in Washington D.C.  It also conducts extensive research and development in collaboration with NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory). It is the only company building and operating both trough and power tower CSP plants.