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PG&E Teams With NRG Energy and eSolar for 92 Megawatts of Solar Thermal Power

Posted on: Thursday, 25 June 2009, 12:00 CDT

Project Features Unique Modular Technology to Speed Delivery of Clean Energy to Utility Customers

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Alpine SunTower, LLC, a subsidiary of NRG Energy Inc. (NYSE: NRG), for 92 megawatts (MW) of renewable, solar thermal power.

The Alpine SunTower project features eSolar's modular, scalable solar thermal technology and is scheduled for completion in 2012. The project will be located near Lancaster, Calif. and will produce approximately 192 gigawatt-hours of electricity each year. This is equal to the annual consumption of nearly 30,000 average homes.

"PG&E is collaborating with NRG and eSolar to serve our customers' future energy needs and respond to their demand for renewable resources," said Fong Wan, senior vice president of energy procurement for PG&E. "The combination of NRG's proven development skills and eSolar's innovative technology can provide our customers with clean, affordable energy."

The project announced today is part of eSolar and NRG's recently announced plans to develop up to 500 MW of solar thermal power in California and across the Southwestern United States.

"NRG is very pleased to be working hand-in-hand with PG&E, a utility at the forefront of bringing green solutions to the electricity sector, to deploy at scale eSolar's exciting new solar technology," said David Crane, NRG's president and chief executive officer. "As we enter the hot summer months, we are reminded that solar power has a key role to play in helping meet peak demands in California."

Solar thermal power generates electricity by converting solar energy to heat, which boils water to create steam that turns a turbine. The spinning turbine then generates electricity like a traditional steam plant but without burning fuel or causing emissions, such as greenhouse gases. eSolar's concentrating solar power projects feature a proprietary combination of optics and software in a pre-fabricated form factor for cost-effective scalability. Its scalable plants will be built in 46 MW unit solutions, each of which requires one quarter square mile of land.

"With the only operating solar power tower technology in the U.S., this new agreement with world-class utility PG&E points to the success of NRG and eSolar to develop solar thermal generation," said Bill Gross, CEO of eSolar. "eSolar's power towers can be designed in variable configurations and are easily scalable to meet the growing and evolving needs of forward-looking power providers like PG&E."

Since 2002, PG&E has entered into contracts for more than 20 percent of its future electric power deliveries from renewable sources. On average, half of the electricity PG&E delivers to its customers comes from carbon-free generating sources, making the company's energy some of the cleanest consumed by any electric utility customers in the nation.

About Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to 15 million people in northern and central California. For more information, visit www.pge.com/about/.

About eSolar

eSolar is an Idealab company founded by CEO Asif Ansari in 2007 to develop, construct and deploy modular, scalable solar thermal power plants. eSolar's approach marries a low-impact, pre-fabricated form factor with advanced optics and computer software engineering to meet the demands of utilities of any size for clean, renewable and cost-competitive solar energy. By focusing on the key business obstacles that have characterized large solar installations - price, scalability, speed of deployment and grid impact - eSolar has developed a proprietary solution to make a dramatic reduction in the cost of solar thermal technology. eSolar is based in Pasadena, California and has 76 employees. For more information please visit http://www.esolar.com/.

About NRG

NRG Energy, Inc., a Fortune 500 company, owns and operates one of the country's largest and most diverse power generation portfolios. Headquartered in Princeton, NJ, the Company's power plants provide more than 24,000 megawatts of generation capacity, enough to supply more than 20 million homes. NRG's retail business, Reliant Energy, serves more than 1.7 million residential, business, commercial and industrial customers in Texas. A past recipient of the energy industry's highest honors--Platts Industry Leadership and Energy Company of the Year awards, NRG is a member of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP), a group of business and environmental organizations calling for mandatory legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More information is available at www.nrgenergy.com.

Safe Harbor Disclosure

This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks, uncertainties and assumptions and include statements regarding solar power development and typically can be identified by the use of words such as "will," "expect," "estimate," "anticipate," "forecast," "plan," "believe" and similar terms. Although NRG believes that its expectations are reasonable, it can give no assurance that these expectations will prove to have been correct, and actual results may vary materially. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contemplated above include, among others, general economic conditions, hazards customary in the power industry, weather conditions, competition in wholesale power markets, the volatility of energy and fuel prices, failure of customers to perform under contracts, changes in the wholesale power markets, changes in government regulation of markets and of environmental emissions, unanticipated outages at our generation facilities, adverse results in current and future litigation, and the inability to implement value enhancing improvements to plant operations and companywide processes.

NRG undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. The foregoing review of factors that could cause NRG's actual results to differ materially from those contemplated in the forward-looking statements included herein should be considered in connection with information regarding risks and uncertainties that may affect NRG's future results included in NRG's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov.

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Source: PR Newswire

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