The company has contributed its former US project development company, Solar Millennium LLC, of California, into the Joint Venture as the US solar development wing of STA.
Solar Millennium LLC has long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) for around three parabolic trough power plants with a capacity of 242MW, each in California and is presently working with Nevada Energy to develop projects in the Amargosa desert. The company has also planned other projects.
STA would pursue project development in key Southwestern states, utilizing its business units’ Project Development, Financing, Engineering, Power Plant Construction and Investment expertise, and would cover the entire value chain for solar thermal power plants in the US.
Uwe T. Schmidt, chairman and chief executive officer of STA, said: “The expansion of the previous activities around power plant construction opens up new sales potential. We offer our customers the entire range of services in the development, financing, technology, construction and operation of solar thermal power plants from a single provider. Adequate capitalization should make it possible to simultaneously develop and realize several large projects with investment volumes of more than one billion US dollars each.”
Josef Eichhammer, president and chief operating officer of STA, said: “With our project development team at Solar Millennium LLC and our partners we have considerable experience in developing solar thermal power plants and have already concluded the first agreements for the realization of such plants with a total capacity of up to 726 MW. Overall, we will build on Solar Millennium‘s successes in Spain and with 250 MW – class plants we will set a further milestone in the development of innovative solar power plants.”
