Utility scale renewable energy solar power plants developer SolarReserve on Tuesday said it received $140 million in second round funding.
Citi Alternative Investment’s Sustainable Development Investments and Good Energies led the round, with Credit Suisse, Nimes Capital, PCG Clean Energy & Technology Fund, and US Renewables Group also participating.
The funding will go toward development of multiple utility scale power plants ranging from 50 megawatts (MW) to 300MW. The Santa Monica-based company hopes to build a total of 5,000MW of power plants around the world.
The solar power plants that SolarReserve aim to build will generate electricity from the sun’s heat. The sun’s thermal energy is focused via thousands of mirrors (called heliostats) onto molten salt. The molten salt contains the heat within a central receiver, so that the sun doesn’t need to be out for power to be available, and is then used to produce steam to power steam turbines, which in turn produce electricity.
The technology is based on Solar Two, a test solar-thermal project in the Mojave Desert of California. While Solar One used oil or water to concentrate energy, Solar Two successfully utilized molten salts.
The 17 MW Solar Tres Power Tower, in Spain, also works with molten salts and is set to be the world’s first commercial molten-salt receiver plant.