Ausra lowers sights on solar plants, cuts staff

January 29, 2009 | Camille Ricketts | Comments | |

Solar energy company Ausra announced that it no longer plans to build massive solar thermal plants across the southwest and California desert due to poor economic conditions, shifting its focus to smaller-scale power generation plants. To weather the downturn, the Palo Alto, Calif. firm is also placing more emphasis on selling its technology and equipment assets to utilities and related companies.

For most of 2008, Ausra was working on solar plants costing up to $1 billion, but its executives say the market won’t support such capital-intensive projects. It’s new business model, based on equipment sales, should prove more consistently lucrative. The company is known for its proprietary light-focusing mirrors — called compact linear Fresnel reflectors — used to channel sunlight to generate steam, turn turbines and create electricity. But plants aren’t out of the question. As chief executive Robert Fishman told the San Jose Mercury News, “Instead of one 600-megawatt project, we’ll do twelve 50-megawatt projects.” It opened its first 5-megawatt pilot plant in Bakersfield, Calif. at the end of last year, and plans to sell its technology to companies that are engaged in building bigger facilities.

Ausra’s new strategy came with its share of layoffs — about a dozen of its 108 employees have been trimmed from the staff since December. Several executives have also chosen to depart: Greentech Media reports that Glen Davis, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, and Robert Morgan, executive vice president and chief development officer, left to jumpstart Agile Energy, the renewable company they worked for previously.

Ausra now says bigger plants probably won’t be part of its agenda unless it gets acquired by bigger fish, like PG&E. This doesn’t seem too far-fetched considering that the company already has a contract with the utility giant for a 177-megawatt solar-thermal plant in California (currently pending government approval).

An acquisition could be good news for Ausra investors, which include active cleantech players Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Khosla Ventures. Both firms have placed large bets on cleantech enterprises in the last year in hopes that the sector will weather the downturn a bit better than others. Then again, Vinod Khosla has had some tough knocks in this area. Verasun, the ethanol maker that he once praised as one of the most innovative companies in the industry, filed for Chapter 11 in October.

According to an analyst quoted by the Mercury News, Ausra’s decision to scale back isn’t indicative of a broader trend for solar. But there is evidence to the contrary. Hayward, Calif.-based OptiSolar, a thin-film solar provider that also had a photovoltaic plant in the works, was forced to lay off half its workforce when it couldn’t find enough funding for the project. SunPower, a solar panel manufacturer in San Jose, Calif., just shaved 60 jobs from its staff. Cell maker Suntech Power Holdings cut 10 percent of its staff, and both Heliovolt and SunEdison recently laid off an undisclosed number of workers.

Even so, venture capitalists don’t appear to be souring on solar opportunities. Ausra itself last raised $60.6 million in October on the heels of a $24.5 million investment in August. And its Bay Area peers Solyndra and Nanosolar both saw an avalanche of funding earlier this month — bringing in $219.2 million and $300 million respectively.

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About the Author, Camille Ricketts

Camille is the lead writer for GreenBeat. She came to VentureBeat from Google where she worked on its traditional platforms team, particularly in TV. Before that, she was a reporter for the Wall Street Journal in New York and London. Follow her on Twitter at @camillericketts, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.

With GreenBeat 2009, VentureBeat's all-star conference on all things Smart Grid, coming up in November, Camille will be expanding coverage of this exciting space. Stay up to date by following @greenbeat2009 on Twitter or by becoming a fan of the event on Facebook here.

  • Peter Antypas
    “Instead of one 600-megawatt project, we’ll do twelve 50-megawatt projects.”

    How about 1,000 600KW projects, 10,000 60KW projects or 100,000 6KW projects? Bottom-up thinking is what we need to kick the coal habit. Make small kits, sell them to individual tinkerers, crowdsource the innovation ...
  • Ian
    A classic example of using equity to finance what debt should have. They should have their pants pulled down by the market - they didn't have any crazy technology, perhaps maybe their thermal storage stuff, but mum's the word on that from what I can tell.
  • Nick the Greek Socrates
    We knew of the inevitable at end of 2006. (Same inevitable that occurred in 1991, thereafter SEGS-IX, the last for a decade and half).
    Nevada’s solar and that 5MWe could also be the last of the IPPs, construed as the conclusive event of 2008 and the final for this millennium, the FPL’s 2010 event; the end of all.
    Indubitably due to:
    1.Siting of solar farms, whether on BLM’s administered land, or on a privately owned, that turned-out to be a “Grande Fiasco”.
    2.IOUs quest to develop-own-operate, right after the solar boys gets permitting, was already evident by their Renewables RFO’s platform.
    3.Unless, the Private Equity Firms demand return of their initial rounds from those several solar boys, having no other alternatives, but to go trough the FSAs, the IOUs have to take over the conclusion of the permitting. (Possible, just about break-even, at best, if the solar boys obtain the permitting and EXIT; for good).
    4.Thereafter, most likely by 2010, the RPS may be trashed-out and the IOUs can continue their status quo; business as usual.
    5.In lieu thereof funding pilot projects, based upon several viable disruptive technology by the in-the-box out of their garages solar boys, the Rulers of the Status Quo blow it out to the Universities, the Labs, bunch of “Proclaimed Socrates” and not limited to those non-profits 501(c)(3)??? ESQs, being some of the reasons for today’s commenced exiting with irreparable harm. (It is also believed, that Nostradamus may had some scripts about the Environs-for-profit (50…..0000(nothing) and their respective Intervenors ESQs, predicting that they have to look elsewhere for-profits in 2010, the beginning of the “Great California Blackouts”)
    6.It is also believed, that there were certain scripts by Nostradamus, mentioning about the “Science Revolution of 2010”, which included today’s RPS and short lived tech’s modeling, which are to be just on paper, like his scripts, not limited to Governmental Agencies consolidation, which can not foster the implementation of the Science Revolution, due to outcome of the predicted then final 2010 financial crash.
    7.The Stimulus Plan will not prolong the inevitable exiting of Renewable and Alternative energy’s IPPs; long gone by 2010 (Read the small print, as well as in-between), unless the Obama’s Administration, Legislature, Congress and the House, not limited to the DOE’s Dr. Chu presiding, come-up with a drastic changes in the Bill, fostering comfort zone (Near-zero Risk Factor) to those major Fund of Funds/Hedge Funds and some of the SRI’s bailed-out Wall Streeters, for the real rounds; construction of Renewable/Alternative energy’s electric power generating facilities.
    8.The Era of the Hybrids. To alleviate black-outs in California (identical to the 2001, if not more severe, ask CA ISO for 2010 Modeling ) and other Western States, the IOUs will be scrambling for these 50MWe Peakers, particularly if the RPS is to remain, instead of trashed-out, praying for the “150MWe Super Peakers”, consisting of about 20% of total nameplate worth of Renewables, integrated with at least 40% recovered energy, in synergy with the residual 40% by the old mighty natural gas-fired.

    Adios Solares Muchachos.
    May be, may be not, we see you in Baja California, Mexico. No solar-thermal there.
    No Renewables, nor CSP’s solar-thermal, nor Fresnel,’s factory, nor Power Towers, nor PV/CPV there either. Just Super Hybrid Complexes (diesel-fired with seawater desals and with plenty of red tomatoes in the Super Greenhouses; you got to eat vegetables, do you? It is good for your health.