By Renewable Energy Focus staff

Alstom invested an initial US$55m in May 2010.

Alstom and BrightSource are partnering in countries in the Mediterranean ring and Africa, where solar conditions best suit BrightSource’s concentrating solar power (CSP) tower technology.

Alstom will complement BrightSource’s CSP technology with its steam turbine technology.

Philippe Joubert, Alstom Power President, says: “With this new investment, we continue to build our partnership with BrightSource Energy to provide highly efficient solar thermal power plants that will bring customers cost-efficient and reliable carbon-free power.

“This further reinforces our commitment to the solar thermal market, in line with Alstom’s clean power strategy to provide leading solutions spanning hydro, geothermal, wind, biomass, waste-to-energy and tidal”.

In October 2010 BrightSource Energy began construction of its 392 MW Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System (ISEGS) in San Bernardino County, California.