BrightSource Energy of Oakland, Calif. has raised $201 million in a Round E, bringing its total funding to more than $530 million in private equity. That funding is in addition to a federal loan guarantee of $1.3 billion. The investors include Alstom, a French power plant player, as well as the usual suspects -- Vantage Point Venture Partners, Alstom, CalSTRS, DFJ, DBL Investors, Chevron Technology Ventures, and BP Technology Ventures, together with new investors.
The SEC filing, dated today, is here.
BrightSource is building one of the world’s largest solar power plants (solar thermal, not photovoltaic) in San Bernardino County, California: the Ivanpah project. According to an article written late last year by GTM Research Solar analyst Brett Prior, NRG Solar signed a letter of intent to partner with BrightSource to construct, finance, own and operate the 392-MW Ivanpah plant. NRG will become the lead investor, although Bechtel (the EPC firm) will also be an equity investor.
BrightSource recently announced a smaller 38-megawatt project in Crete.
Check out GTM Research's CSP Project Tracker here.
BrightSource has additional power contracts for 1,300 megawatts with Southern California Edison and 1,310 megawatts with Pacific Gas & Electric. In presentations and conversations with the firm, BrightSource claims that one of its core technologies is the firm's software control capabilities -- precisely moving thousands of mirrors is not a trivial task.
The firm has modest, if any, revenue. SharesPost, a secondary market website, valued the company at $800,000,000 prior to this round.