05.17.12
Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Director of the Bureau of Land Management Bob Abbey made a stop at the Ivanpah project last week (May 10) while traveling in California. Representatives from NRG, BrightSource and Bechtel accompanied Secretary Salazar’s group around the grounds for a brief tour of the project. Secretary Salazar said that he was very impressed with Ivanpah’s progress! He stayed to share a short chat and take a few photos with project staff.
From left to right: BLM’s Bob Abbey, Bechtel’s Terry Copeland, Secretary Salazar, NRG’s Tim Fisk and BrightSource’s Doug Davis.
04.26.12
Last week, 57 desert tortoise were moved back into their natural habitat in the Ivanpah Valley, just outside to boundaries of the Ivanpah SEGS site. The majority of desert tortoise found on the site will be a “short distance” translocation, where the tortoise will remain well within its home range in a habitat with familiar soil composition, food sources, weather and terrain.
Prior to each tortoise’s move, biologists devote hundreds of hours preparing for the tortoise’s eventual move back into the wild. They identify an ideal habitat near where the tortoise was originally found on the project site. When the time of year and temperatures are appropriate for translocation activity, desert tortoise biologists begin by conducting a medical assessment of the tortoises to ensure they are healthy and ready for translocation. Next, with oversight from a Bureau of Land Management biologist, two tortoises at a time are taken from the tortoise nursery to their new, pre-determined location.
Once at the location, the biologists check to see if the tortoise has “voided,” or emptied their bladders. Desert tortoise can survive for up to six months without food or water, so it is very important that the tortoise are fully hydrated before being moved to their new location. They will need the water reserves while they become acclimated with their new surroundings and await the rare rainfall in the desert. To rehydrate a tortoise that has voided, desert biologists can give the tortoise with a quick injection of saline solution in their under arm area, which is painless to the tortoise.
Finally, the tortoise is placed under the shade of a creosote bush that is at least one and a half feet tall. It is then left to venture out and find a new burrow to inhabit and socialize with its new neighbors. This process will be repeated for a total of 57 tortoise that are to be relocated this spring. Biologists will monitor all translocated tortoises each day for the week following to ensure that each tortoise safely assimilates into their new surroundings. After a period of time, the monitoring will be reduced to once a week during the active season and twice a month over the winter for up to 5 years.
The Ivanpah biologists are doing all that they can to ensure the tortoises have a safe transition back into their natural habitat. Each of the translocated tortoises, their hatchlings living in the head-start program (learn more here) and the recipient tortoise population are being studied extensively by biologist and they are eager to gather important new data about the species. The information gleaned at the Ivanpah project will help the desert tortoise biologist community learn more about the species and determine additional ways to help the population once again flourish.
All of the desert tortoise biologists working on the Ivanpah site are authorized professionals and follow a very rigorous set of handling and care guidelines established by the Bureau of Land Management and the California Department of Fish and Game and the and the US Fish and Wildlife Services to ensure the safety of the tortoise. For example, for each translocation, there are a very specific set of best practices followed to ensure a successful translocation:
- Each and every tortoise has its own individual “disposition” plan, which tracks the tortoise’s health, activity, habits. These factors are taken into consideration before they are introduced into a new area.
- Each tortoise undergoes a comprehensive medical assessment to verify that the animal is healthy and does not carry a potentially-fatal respiratory disease that is prevalent and contagious among the desert tortoise population.
- The receiving area where the tortoise will be relocated is surveyed numerous times in advance so the “recipient population,” or existing tortoise residents are healthy and can safely accommodate additional tortoises.
- The animal can only be translocated during very specific periods in the spring and the fall.
- The animal can only be translocated when the temperatures are between 65 and 95 degrees F.
04.24.12
Project recognized for its innovative approach, job creation and scale of clean energy production
(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) April 24, 2012 – NRG Energy, Google, BrightSource Energy and EPC partner Bechtel announced that the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (Ivanpah SEGS) received the 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award by the USC CMAA Green Symposium. Ivanpah SEGS in California’s Mojave Desert is currently the world’s largest concentrating solar power (CSP) plant under construction. When completed, it will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced in the US.
“The sheer magnitude of the Ivanpah project is reinforcing California’s position as the leader of renewable energy in the United States,” said Caroline Fletcher, USC Green Symposium Co-Chair. “The project has demonstrated an innovative approach to partnerships and is significantly contributing to job creation in the region. We’re very pleased to honor this important project with our 2012 Energy Project of the Year Award.”
“Ivanpah is a flagship project, widely recognized for its environmentally-responsible design, and lauded for its role in helping to grow Southern California’s High Desert economy,” said Joe Desmond, SVP of Government Relations and Communications, BrightSource Energy. “We look forward to completing this important solar power facility and help California meet its economic and clean energy goals.”
“We are pleased to be a part of this award-winning project. The innovation applied to the engineering and construction of Ivanpah will help advance the renewable energy industry and make solar energy a viable option for more people,” said Jim Ivany, president of renewable power at Bechtel.
Ivanpah commenced construction in October 2010 and is expected to begin delivering power to its utility customers PG&E and Southern California Edison in 2013. At the peak of construction, the project will employ over 1,600 construction workers and on-site project support staff.
Technology Provided by BrightSource Energy
Ivanpah will employ BrightSource’s power tower solar thermal technology, which generates power the same way as traditional power plants – by creating high temperature steam to turn a turbine. However, instead of using fossil fuels or nuclear power to create the steam, BrightSource uses the sun’s energy. BrightSource’s system uses a state-of-the-art field of software-controlled mirrors, called heliostats, to reflect the sun’s energy to a boiler atop a tower to produce the high temperature and high-pressure steam. The steam can then be integrated with conventional power plant components to produce predictable, reliable and cost-competitive clean energy. BrightSource’s technology is designed to produce the highest temperature and pressure solar steam in the world.
About the Ivanpah Project
The Ivanpah solar power facility is located on approximately 3,500 acres of federal land in California’s Mojave desert, managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior‘s Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The 377 megawatt (net output) facility consists of three separate solar thermal power plant that, when constructed, will produce enough clean energy to power 140,000 homes.
The power generated from these solar plants will be sold under separate contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE). PG&E will purchase approximately two-thirds of the power generated at Ivanpah and SCE will purchase approximately one-third. In all, BrightSource has contracted with PG&E and SCE to deliver approximately 2,400 megawatts of electric power.
Creating Jobs
BrightSource and Bechtel, the engineering and construction contractor for the Ivanpah project, estimate that construction of the Ivanpah project will require approximately over 1,600 union jobs at the peak of construction. In December 2009, Bechtel signed a project labor agreement with the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California (SBCTC) and the Building & Construction Trades Council of San Bernardino and Riverside counties to ensure that California‘s local workforce benefits from the project. The project will also provide $400 million in local and state tax revenues, and produce $650 million in wages, over its first 30-year life.
An Environmentally Responsible Project
The Ivanpah project will reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 400,000 tons annually, which is the equivalent of taking more than 70,000 cars off the road. BrightSource’s system is also designed to minimize impacts on the natural environment. In addition to being one of the most land-efficient renewable energy technologies, BrightSource’s low impact heliostat layout is flexible, allowing the solar field to be built around the natural contours of the land and avoid areas of sensitive vegetation. And in order to conserve scarce water resources, the technology employs an air-cooling system to convert the steam back into water in a closed-loop cycle. By using air-cooling, BrightSource’s technology uses more than 90 percent less water than older technology parabolic trough plants with wet cooling.
04.18.12
Meet Hagai: Solar Field Manager
When a project requires 347,000 mirrors and 173,500 assembled heliostats, it’s critical that the assembly process is rapid and efficient. As BrightSource’s solar field manager for the Ivanpah project, Hagai Huss is responsible for supporting Solar Partners’ important manufacturing underway in the heliostat assembly building and the pad bonding buildings, working hard to ensure that 500 heliostats or more roll off the production line each day. Watch our video with Hagai to learn more.
Construction Update
Springtime has been busy at the Ivanpah SEGS and the project is over one third complete! Construction continues to advance on schedule, with over 1700 total staff on site, including manual construction workers, non-manual laborers, biologists and project management. See below for construction highlights from February and March.
Common Area
In the Common Area, the Pad Bonding Buildings and the Heliostat Assembly Building are nearing full production capacity. The team set a record-number of assemblies in March and is very close to approaching its goal of assembling 500+ heliostats each day.
Construction on the permanent administration buildings continues to move forward. The Ivanpah team is working closely with Kern River Gas Transmission to interconnect the Ivanpah plant with the existing Kern River Gas Transmission system to allow delivery of natural gas to Unit #1, Unit #2 and Unit #3.
Southern California Edison (SCE) relocated the existing transmission lines in the vicinity of the new substation pad in March. The 115 kV lines have been raised and poles have been relocated to allow Solar Partners to install the final 300 feet of conductor to the substation terminal structure for Unit #1.
Unit 1
In the Unit #1 power block area, we witnessed the lift of the steam drum in late February and the placement of the final boiler tier in mid March. The tower is considered “topped out,” meaning it has reached is full height of 459 feet. Although the tower looks complete, there is still much to be done inside the boiler. Boilermakers are busy welding the interconnecting boiler piping and installing the boiler and protection panels on the outside of the boiler. Last month, the team began installing the tuned mass damper, a device that is mounted in tall structures to reduce any tower movement caused by wind or seismic activity. Once the tuned mass damper is set, the remaining boiler and protection panels will be placed around the walls of the boiler.
Construction of the air-cooled condenser, or ACC, is underway. The ACC allows Ivanpah to be “dry-cooled” versus wet-cooled, reducing water usage by more than 90% over a conventional wet cooling system.
The plant services building is nearly complete, with the electrical equipment installed in late March.
In the Unit #1 solar field, pylon installation is more than 92% complete. The remaining 8% are the pylons nearest to the power block area, which is currently being used as a laydown area for construction activity. Once the power block is complete, the remaining pylons and heliostats will be installed. Overall, more than 19,000 heliostats are installed in Unit #1 and electricians are busy wiring the heliostats together and connecting them to the communication and power distribution units, or CPDU’s.
Unit 2
Nine steel sections are now in place at the Unit #2 tower as well as the first two boiler modules for a total of eleven tiers. The remaining boiler sections of the tower are pre-fabricated in the power block area and will be lifted into place by crane.
On the ground in the power block area, the team continues work on the plant services building.
In the solar field, the team has completed the “ring roads,” or dirt paths placed within the solar field to allow workers to access the heliostats and wash the heliostat mirrors. More than 17,000 pylons are installed along with 800 heliostats.
Unit 3
At Unit #3, the tower is rapidly growing, with tier four in place, and tiers five and six constructed and complete and waiting to be lifted into place. The team is already working on pre-assembling the solar boiler sections (tiers 10-14) on the ground to expedite construction. Additionally, the concrete pours for the plant services building, ACC and the base mat of the steam turbine generator foundations are now complete.
03.06.12
On March 4th, the Los Angeles Times published an article by Julie Cart titled, “Saving desert tortoises is a costly hurdle for solar projects.” The story does a good job of highlighting the historic challenges faced by the desert tortoise over the millennia. However, there were several inaccuracies that need correction and instances where additional information would have provided important context for the reader, such as the extensive desert tortoise care program in place at the Ivanpah project. This is important to understand because desert tortoise mortality rates in the natural environment are as high as 98 percent. Tortoise care programs for hatchling and juvenile tortoise provide a critical path for improving survival rates by providing support and protection from ravens, kit foxes, and coyotes and other factors such as drought and disease during approximately the first five years of life.
The Ivanpah project owners – NRG, Google and BrightSource Energy – are going to great lengths to ensure minimal impact to the desert tortoise population at and near our project site. In fact, one of our project/company goals is to help the repopulation of the desert tortoise. We currently care for 170 juvenile desert tortoise (including 53 newborn hatchlings). These juveniles are cared for and will be reintroduced into the wild once they are large enough to resist predation. Our desert tortoise care program is actively supporting efforts to repopulate the desert tortoise in the Ivanpah Valley. We are working extensively with government agencies California Energy Commission, Bureau of Land Management, California Department of Fish and Game, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mojave National Preserve and the environmental community to develop a thoughtful and responsible tortoise mitigation strategy.
On behalf of the Ivanpah SEGS project, we are proud of the significant efforts we have put forth to care for and protect the desert tortoise as we work to bring clean, solar power to California homes.
The information below corrects inaccuracies found in the article and describes the many ways we’re working with biologists to protect this critical species.
Corrections to the LA Times Story
1) The LA Times incorrectly refers to the desert tortoise as an endangered species. The desert tortoise is federally-listed as a threatened species – not an endangered species. Endangered is a more serious designation within the Endangered Species Act, meaning that the species is currently on the brink of extinction. Threatened species do not currently face the same risk, although they are protected to help prevent their becoming endangered.
2) Contrary to the LA Times story, the developers of the Ivanpah SEGS site were not aware of the heavy tortoise populations prior to selecting the project location. The BLM has designated the land on which Ivanpah SEGS is located as the “least important” category (Category 3) of habitat for the desert tortoise. This land is not within any defined critical habitat or under any special protection. In fact, the nearby area has significant human disturbances, including an adjacent 36-hole golf course, numerous transmission lines and casinos and outlet shopping stores approximately five miles from the site. The area is also a popular location for off-road vehicle enthusiasts and land-sailors.
Initial desert tortoise surveys conducted by biologists found 17 desert tortoise on site, a very low density of tortoise relative to the average for this area, and particularly relative to areas designated for special protection, which have as much as 10 times the density of desert tortoise. We have since come to understand that these numbers were not representative, as the surveys were undertaken during relatively dry years when tortoise remain underground. The numbers detected during the construction phase were far higher. Still, the number of desert tortoise found on site is only slightly above the average range for the tortoise in the nearly five million acres of habitat within the Northeastern Mojave Recovery Unit, one of multi-million acre recovery units that have been designated.
3) The LA Times wrongly states that “the tortoise brought construction to a standstill for three months.” The Bureau of Land Management issued a stop-work order that affected only the portion of the site that had not yet been screened for tortoise. Construction continued as planned elsewhere and the overall construction schedule was not affected. The project remains on-schedule and we expect the plants to begin delivering power to our customers in 2013. For more information, please see the blog post here.
Important Information about the Ivanpah SEGS Tortoise Care Program
- Financial Investment: The project owners have to date spent approximately 22 million dollars caring for the desert tortoises found on or near the site. This figure includes biologist salaries, materials for constructing the tortoise pens, establishing our head-start program, installing tortoise fencing around the project site and along I-15 and other general tortoise biology work. In addition, we will spend up to $34 million to meet the project’s federal and state mitigation obligations, which include tortoise habitat restoration, the installation of an additional 50 miles of protective tortoise fencing and the minimum purchase of 7,164 acres of conservation habitat. This is the equivalent of 2 acres for every 1 acre of development.
- Biologists: The desert tortoise biologists at Ivanpah operate under strict protocols set forth by the Bureau of Land Management. At any given time, there are dozens of trained biologists on site to make sure that every tortoise on site is accounted for and given the highest levels of care. At certain periods of the construction process, there have been up to 100 biologists actively working on the project. The biologists walk 15-30 feet apart closely examining the landscape, looking in and excavating every animal hole, under every rock and every bush to make sure that all tortoise onsite were accounted for. Additionally, they accompany construction workers and equipment in the field and are fully authorized to halt construction if there are any concerns.
- Nurseries: For tortoise found on site, biologists are following a careful procedure to give them new homes within a mile of the project site. The tortoise are first moved to a nursery where biologists recreate their burrows, using sand and scat from their original homes and ensuring even the orientation of the new burrows matches their original homes. The tortoises are kept there until the biologists can conduct the appropriate medical tests and ensure that the animals are free of a respiratory disease common in the species. Then they will be placed in new areas within a one mile perimeter outside of the power plant construction zone.
- Hatchery “Head Start” Program: In an effort to help facilitate the rebuilding of the desert tortoise population in the Ivanpah Valley area, we have partnered with the Mojave National Preserve to create a hatchery “head-start” program on site. Head-start programs have been found to provide a critical avenue for enhancing repopulation of the desert tortoise by providing support and protection for hatchling and juvenile tortoise during approximately the first five years of life, or until they are large enough to resist predation from ravens, kit foxes, and coyotes and other factors such as drought and disease. Hatchling and juvenile desert tortoise mortality rates in the natural environment are as high as 98 percent in some estimates. All juvenile desert tortoise found on the Ivanpah site and tortoise born in captivity will be cared for in the head-start program before being released into their natural environment. To date, the program has successfully cared for 117 juvenile tortoises and birthed 53 total hatchlings. Many more tortoises will be returned to the wild than would have survived in the wild if Ivanpah had not been built. The Ivanpah SEGS head-start facility is a highly secure, specialized juvenile tortoise pens to care for and protect the hatchlings. The pens will be carefully protected from predators – which include ravens, raptors, ground squirrels, foxes and coyotes – by special mesh security fencing. The fencing will be buried about a foot below ground to prevent predators from burrowing into the pens. Juvenile tortoises also require special habitat considerations because they may not be able to dig through rocky terrain. With just a few head-start programs in existence, the Ivanpah program will provide desert tortoise biologists with important information about head-starting and its effectiveness in repopulating the desert tortoise.
- Translocation: The desert tortoise currently being cared for in the tortoise nurseries and hatchery will ultimately be moved to adjacent land. Biologists follow stringent tortoise translocation protocols outlined by the Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game. The majority of the tortoise will remain within their original “home range” (unlike tortoises translocated long distances to unfamiliar habitat) and will have comparable plant diversity and richness as the Ivanpah SEGS site. Keeping the tortoise close to their original homes greatly increases the rate of success for translocation. The tortoises will be monitored for a number of years following the translocation to ensure the safety of the tortoise.
- Long Term Monitoring: Biologists will be tracking the tortoises that are translocated from the project site as well as the tortoises outside the project site within the “receiving” area for five years. The biologists will use tracking information from nearly 400 tortoise (translocated and recipient populations) to ensure the safe integration of the two populations and gather additional insights on successful relocation procedures. Biologists will also study toxicity levels for one year and noise and vibration along the interstate for three years. This information will provide a wealth of data for future scientific studies of the desert tortoise species.
- Ivanpah SEGS Project Site’s Suitability as Desert Tortoise Habitat: In an effort to rehabilitate the desert tortoise population in the Mojave Desert, habitat is divided into six large areas, called “recovery units,” spanning tens of millions of acres across Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah. Within each recovery unit, the Bureau of Land Management categorizes the quality of the tortoise habitat, ranging from Category 1 (most important) to Category 3 (least important). In total, over 6.4 million acres have been identified as critical habitat for the tortoise across the six recovery units, including 4.75 million acres in California. In California specifically, the Mojave Desert spans over 20 million acres, covering about one-fifth of the state. The Ivanpah SEGS is located within the Northeastern Mojave recovery unit, which covers approximately nine million acres. The project’s land comprises approximately four-hundredths of one percent (0.04%) of the single recovery unit’s total acreage. In the broader Ivanpah Valley, over 630,000 acres have been designated as Critical Habitat for desert tortoise. The Ivanpah SEGS project is not located within any defined Critical Habitat, and has been designated by the BLM as the “least important” category (Category 3) of habitat for the desert tortoise. By comparison, the Ivanpah Desert Wildlife Management Area (DWMA) approximately five miles south of the Ivanpah SEGS has Category 1 habitat.
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