BrightSource Energy, a US-based solar thermal company backed by numerous corporate venturing units including France-based power equipment company Alstom’s, has raised $80m following its failure to float in April.
The series F round takes BrightSource’s total equity raised to more than $615m, excluding more than $1.6bn in US governmnet and other loans to help build its Ivanpah installation of solar panels designed to concentrate the sun’s energy on a central tower.
Alstom Power and venture capital (VC) firm VantagePoint Venture Partners co-led the F round.
The other investors include corporate venturing units from oil majors Chevron and BP, VC firms Draper Fisher Jurvetson and DBL Investors, pension fund California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) and investment bank Goldman Sachs.
In April, BrightSource shelved its flotation on Nasdaq stock exchange, citing “market conditions”. The company planned to raise between $144.9m and $158.7m, it had said on March 30 after agreeing a private placement of shares to Alstom and US-based power producer Caithness Development.
Alstom and Caithness Development had agreed to purchase in private placements $65m and $10m, respectively in March, at a price per share equal to the initial public offering price. BrightSource and Caithness have been contacted to find out whether the independent power producer has pulled out of its private placement following BrightSource’s failure to float.
As part of the financing round, BrightSource and Alstom have expanded geographic partnerships to build solar thermal power plants in India and Australia. In October 2010, the companies agreed partnerships in the ring of countries around the Mediterranean and in Africa. The companies are also collaborating on a series of solar research and development activities focused on thermal storage and hybridization with fossil fuels.
Jérôme Pécresse, president of Alstom Renewable Power, said: “This new investment is a further step in our commitment to the solar thermal power market, and paves the way to provide cost-efficient and reliable carbon free power to our customers.
“This reinforces solar thermal power’s position at the heart of Alstom’s strategy providing leading renewable power solutions spanning hydro, wind, geothermal, ocean and biomass.”
Stephan Dolezalek, managing director at VantagePoint, which has strategic partnerships with Schlumberger, BP and Scottish & Southern Energy, added: “BrightSource’s unique technology combines the scale, robustness and stability of conventional power plants with the attractive low-carbon profile of using a solar feedstock. In addition, the company’s model of working closely with global partners, including Alstom, Bechtel, NRG, Google and Chevron, is how we see the technology of energy evolving.”
Utility NRG Energy had committed up to $300m in equity and search engine Google committed $168m to the Ivanpah project, with the balance from BrightSource and construction group Bechtel.
The US Department of Energy loan was for BrightSource’s Ivanpah project, which has a total project cost of $2.18bn, according to news provider Greentech Media.