California-based solar energy company Ausra appears to be banking on its Southern Nevada manufacturing plant
By admin at 24 February, 2009, 2:47 am
Last year, the company talked of developing solar plants in the Southwest in coming years on top of operating North America’s only solar thermal component assembly plant right here in Las Vegas.
California-based solar energy company Ausra appears to be banking on its Southern Nevada manufacturing plant.
Manufacturing & equipment supply is a safer route for the company. It frees Ausra from the financial uncertainties of developing its own solar plants during a time when financing is nonexistent. Solar companies also expect continued delays in obtaining solar sites on Bureau of Land Management acreage & an increasing number of lawsuits from environmentalists.
But in a Jan. 30 statement, the company announced it will instead focus on the manufacturing side of its business. Ausra “is strategically positioning itself to achieve its goals & serve its customers by focusing on being a technology & equipment supplier than an independent power developer & owner,” as the announcement put it.
The plant can employ up to 50 people, & if the modify in strategy is effective, it stands to reason that would mean increased activity at the plant.
Giving up its development side has meant personnel realignments, including reports of positions eliminated in new york, but the company said the modify would have little effect on its Las Vegas plant, which as of earlier this month employed 35 to 40 people, according to the company.
some of that increased activity is in the works. As part of its realignment, Ausra is expanding its product offerings to include medium-sized (50-megawatt equivalent) solar steam generating systems for use in food processors & enhanced oil recovery firms, as well as for power booster systems that deliver steam into existing fossil-fueled power plants.
Those are to be built at the Las Vegas plant.
No Ausra representative was willing to talk on the record about the modify in direction — to the point of even contending this isn’t a modify but “an evolution.”
“Ausra can quickly ramp up & install these low-cost projects as early as 2009 or 2010, while large power projects can take one to one years,” the company’s statement said. “For Ausra, this will permit the company to deploy its technology & generate revenue immediately, while the larger projects are obtaining permits & getting transmission access.”
The company’s stated aim back then was to install a gigawatt of power each year over 10 to 20 years.
But when Ausra launched its flagship Las Vegas manufacturing facility last spring, company executives said they were scouring the Southwest for solar development sites. The company said it was lining up solar projects across Southern new york, Nevada & indiana that were expected to piggyback on one another.
The company has a demonstration plant on line in Bakersfield, Calif., & a contract with a indiana utility to build a 177-megawatt solar power site near San Luis Obispo, Calif.
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