Khosla, Kleiner put $40 million-plus in Ausra
We knew that Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers were major backers of Ausra Inc., the Palo Alto, Calif.-based developer of solar-thermal power generation systems. But the company will disclose Monday, along with the launch of its Web site, that Khosla and Kleiner Perkins have invested more than $40 million in Ausra’s first round of financing, giving the two VCs roughly half ownership in the company. On top of that, both Vinod Khosla and Ray Lane sit on Ausra’s board, indicating the two VCs are quite intent on guiding the young company toward success.
Ausra, founded by Dr. David Mills (who has spent the past three decades in Australia), got its big break last summer. It’s a great story, really. After years of trying to attract serious interest in his technology in Australia, Mills says he was getting ready to throw in the towel and retire. Then, last fall, he got an offer to go meet Vinod Khosla, followed by the folks at Kleiner Perkins, in October. “We clicked really well,” recalls Mills. By February, Ausra got its first funding and by March the company relocated its headquarters to California and started hiring like crazy. Since relocating, Ausra’s workforce has ballooned from six to nearly 70, and hiring continues. “It’s probably the most exciting time in my career,” Mills, 60, told me in an interview. “Better late than never.”
Ausra aims to offer an emission-free replacement to coal-fired electricity in the United States (California, Texas, Florida, etc..), China and other suitable geographies. Rather than using solar PV, the company uses its own low-cost solar concentrating technology to create steam from water that generates electricity after it passes through high-efficiency turbines. “We are currently building a 30 MW power plant, and are in the process of scaling up to 2,000 MW over the next three years — enough power for two million homes,” the company states in a new job listing on Craigslist.
Mills says the timing is perfect. “There are far more coal plants being cancelled these days than are being ordered, and the interest in our technology exactly coincides with this downturn in coal markets,” he says, adding that his solar-thermal systems are quite competitive with coal, and the economics are expected to improve. “The whole picture is now changing very, very rapidly. You’ll be seeing 10 cents per kilowatt-hour bandied around here, but that will drop very rapidly over the next few years.”
Mills cited many fascinating figures and details about what Ausra is working on, including plans for heat storage, but I’m going to reserve those tidbits for a larger profile I’m working on — so stay tuned.
Tyler Hamilton is senior energy reporter and columnist for the Toronto Star, Canada's largest daily newspaper. In addition to this Clean Break blog, Tyler writes a weekly column of the same name that discusses trends, happenings and innovators in the cleantech market. This blog is a personal project started in April 2005. It is not an official blog of the newspaper. Tyler can be reached at tyler@cleanbreak.ca
September 11th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
This design looks better to me in that it has one collector for a number of troughs — that has to be a money saver.
Stephen
September 12th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
I hope their market focus includes displacing natural gas used for themal applications.
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:11 pm
Centralized solar and geothermal machines aiming to displace coal and nuke plants are great, but I think their claims of no GHG emissions are not completely true. They do produce steam and water vapour is the most powerful of greenhouse gases. Is the effluent steam from such plants being condensed, and if so, is the energy required to do so also being sourced by the plant itself, and if so what does this do to the energy-in versus energy-out equation? Is the spent steam considered an externality?
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:34 pm
They Ausra are condensing the spent steam, and recirculating it back into the generation system; it is a closed loop. Nuke plants typically cool using a local water source, hence the recent nuke shutdowns due to that sourcewater (river, lake) becoming too hot, likely due to climate change. These solar plants are typically offered for desert environments, therefore not near any water source. Ausra holds it will air cool its condensation component, but I wonder, given the nuke examples, how temperature dependent that is, and whether desert air can provide the heat-removal efficacy required. I don’t know much about this stuff, I understand the heating side of things, but the cooling side seems harder to fathom. Wondering aloud.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
Interesting.
If they are condensing and recycling the spent steam, how does the cooling for the condensing get done?
I’ve been wondering why CST can’t be combined with CPV of 35% efficiency in at least on case, using 40.8% PV cells. The CPV is likely to become even more efficient. Electricity from the CPV could be used for grid and excess could be used to cool water in cooing tank. Cold water is easier to store than warm water because the vapor pressure is lower, as long as you don’t freeze it.
There is also a patented device that uses solar heat and gas expansion to drive a piston to push refrigerant through an aperature to provide enough cool to freeze ice. i.e. the thermal expansion drives the refrigeration. It has been a while since I read about this device. Not sure if it is still being sold. Patent for it will still be on record.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
And there is the no-moving-parts solar freezer that they are using in Africa to refrigerate vaccines. During the day the heat causes a chemical reaction between a refrigerant gas and a chemical solid, then when the sun drops and the temperature with it, the chemical releases the refrigerant, which then sucks the heat out of bags of water inside an insulated space, making ice for the next day’s use toward keeping the vaccines cool. The only moving part is the refrigerant itself. If you google solar ice maker you can likely read about it and see pictures. Here’s one: http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/microenterprise/display/14
November 17th, 2007 at 9:56 am
John O’Donnell
In 1939 when I was six years old I used to burn holes in newpaper with a magnifying glass. Why can’t you do something with that!
“Syke”
November 20th, 2007 at 7:29 am
Regarding location: near sea shores desalination (here too) becomes a significant and often overlooked benefit.
Falling watertables are an important threat to 100’s of mln’s op people. And this dimension of CSP delivers fresh water at competive cost. Comparable to CSP vs coal with CCS.
In the shade of the mirrors and with -part of- the water produced agriculture can prosper. For food as well as bio fuels.
Why is there such an overwhelming silence on this option where all sentient beings, now and in the future would benefit?
Why does the EU (and the US) spend 100’s of mln’s of Euro’s on h2 and bio fuels. Which pale in the light of the potential of CSP for electricity, water and agriculture?
What helps is
- the mixed blessing of expensive oil
- the rise of EV’s & V2G (see speech by Agassi)
Emil M