Binyamin Koretz by L'ambassade de France en Israël

BrightSource Energy’s Solar Energy Development Center

November 2010 1

BrightSource Energy  Our business:  Developing and building utilityscale solar power plants  The company:  Headquarters in Oakland, Calif.  R&D/Engineering subsidiary in Jerusalem  2,610 MW in signed PPAs in California  The team:  Key managers of Luz who designed and built more than 350 MW of solar thermal plants in the 1980s  World class project development team with over 20GW of power projects developed, constructed, and managed 2

The Solar Energy Development Center   

Located on 20 acres in the Negev Desert – 2 hrs from Jerusalem The largest solar energy facility in the Middle East Inaugurated June 2008 and operating continuously in 2009

The Solar Energy Development Center   

6 MW thermal power – utility-quality steam at 540°C, 140 bar 15m forced-recirculation drum boiler + superheater atop 60m tower 12,000 m2 total reflecting area: 1,640 heliostats, each 3.25m X 2.25m

The SEDC Solar Field The pilot solar field is a wedge cut out of a 360° surround field

The SEDC Solar Field

The SEDC Receiver The pilot receiver is a 5m section of a full-sized receiver

5m section 16.5m X 16.5m

The SEDC Receiver

SEDC in Operation

Full-Year Operation – Key Figures  Maximum absorbed power: 6.04 MW on September 1  Reached 6 MW design point of the SEDC pilot receiver • After we removed 10% of heliostats for upgrade in mid-September, we continued to reach corresponding peak power levels

 Peak solar-to-thermal efficiency of 54% despite small receiver size

 Average absorbed power increased by 10% over the course of the summer 2009 operating period to 5 MW during midday peak-insolation hours  Average solar field availability of 97.4% for the year  Average daily performance-to-model tracking improved to 98% accuracy by late summer and continued improving to approximately 100% accuracy by the end of the year 10

12-Month Operating Highlights Su

J U N E

J U L Y

A U G U S T

S E P T

O C T

N O V

Jun 1

Jul 1

Aug 1

Sep 1

Oct 1

Nov 1

 131 days of regular operation (out of 243 non-holiday weekdays)  44 days of scheduled tests and/or maintenance  60 days of bad weather (wind and/or clouds)  8 days with data file problems or opns fault  Average daily insolation (during operating hours)  45 good days (800-900  

W/m2) 50 fair days (700-800 W/m2) 36 poor days (<700 W/m2)

Regular operation Validation / maintenance No operation – weekend/holiday No operation – weather Data problems / operation fault

D E C

J A N

F E B

M A R C H A P R I L

M A Y

Dec 1

Jan 1

Feb 1

Mar 1

Apr 1

May 1

Performance – Average Steady-State Output 6

Season al decre ase due to s un angle

e l increas Seasona n angle due to su



Average daily performance during “steady-state” hours rose from 4.5MW to 5MW during the summer of 2009 due to receiver cleaning and heliostat calibration system upgrade; season performance improvement continued until December



After the 10% reduction in heliostats, average steadystate performance stayed between 4.5MW and 5MW on good days, with a seasonal decrease in spring



Poor weather in the spring shows up both in the performance of good days (where afternoon wind or clouds cut operations short) and in the attempt to operate on the frequent poor days

4 Average output (MW) 3 during steady-state hours

2 10% heliostat reduction 

0 June 2009

Operating Days

May 2010

Steady state comprises those hours of the day when insolation levels off, and steam pressure is maintained at the optimal operating level 12

Performance – Daily Energy Production 50 45 40 35 30 Daily energy 25 (MWh) 20 15 10 5 0

June 2009

 Daily energy production 10% heliostat is obviously higher on  reduction good insolation days and on the longer days of summer, but length of the working day also varies for logistical reasons  The working day at SEDC was lengthened as the summer of 2009 progressed in order to validate start-up and shutdown procedures  Winter and spring days Operating Days May 2010 often start late because of morning clouds, or are cut Total thermal energy produced on short because of afternoon regular operating days including days winds or clouds without steady-state operation, excluding days without at least 2-3 hours operation

Performance vs. Model 1.15

1.10

1.05

Trendline (linear regression)

1.00 Ratio of actual to 0.95 expected performance 0.90

0.85

0.80

0.75

June 2009

Operating Days

May 2010

Daily correlation of actual performance to expected values based on BSII solar-to-flux model

 Trendline shows improvement from 90% a year ago to ~100%. Most of the improvement was due to better performance, not better modeling!  Intermittent clouds are responsible for most low-correlation days  Bias was largely eliminated and intraday results improved by better modeling of thermal inertia (thermal inertia is the absorption and release of thermal energy by the mass of the receiver itself, as opposed to the water/steam in the receiver tubes)

Solar Field Availability 1 0.95 0.9 0.85 Average daily heliostat availability

0.8 0.75 0.7 0.65 0.6

Operating Days

Only steady-state hours are counted because heliostats are added incrementally during morning ramp-up.

 Solar field availability averaged over 97% for all regular operating days  Days with special circumstances such as early shutdowns due to clouds or operations faults are not included in the chart or in the average, because of the difficulty in presenting an accurate average daily availability  Our expectation for SEDC was 95% because of prototype-stage heliostat production, and bodes well for the 99% availability projected for industrialized heliostats at Ivanpah

Project Scale-up

Solar Energy Development Center 2008 (6 MWth)

Solar Thermal Chevron EOR Demo Plant

Ivanpah Solar Power Complex 2012/3 (392 MWe)

2010/1 (29 MWth)

1999 Harrison St. Suite 2150 Oakland, CA 94602 (510) 550-8161 17

11 Kiryat Mada St. Har Hotzvim Tech Park Jerusalem 91450 +972 77-202-5000