First Solar Thermal Power Manufacturing Plant in the United States Being Built in Nevada

On Thursday, Ausra Inc. announced that it is building the first-of-its-kind U.S. manufacturing plant for solar thermal power systems in Las Vegas.

The 130,000-square-foot, highly automated manufacturing and distribution center will make the solar thermal power plants' reflectors, towers, absorber tubes, and other core components. The plant will open in April of 2008 and is expected to employ 50 highly skilled workers. 

Ausra develops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal power technology to serve global electricity needs in a reliable, market-driven, and environmentally harmonious way. Its power plants use fields of mirrors to capture the sun's power, producing electricity void of pollution. Solar thermal power plants have the ability to store energy as heat in order to continue power generation at night or during cloudy periods.

Ausra's innovations in mirror systems have brought down the price of solar power on a par with that of gas-fired electricity today, and will soon reach prices on a par with coal-fired electricity generation.

Ausra claims that its product design has relatively low manufacturing costs and a resulting lower cost per kilowatt for utilities because it uses less steel than mirrored troughs and standard components, such as architectural glass, making it independent from specialized suppliers.

According to Ausra, the corporation derives its name from the Lithuanian goddess of the dawn, who in turn was descended from the very ancient Indo-European goddess of the sunrise named "Hausos" or "Ausus", although the root also appears in several other forms, including the Greek Eos meaning "dawn," the Latin "aurora," and the Sanskrit "ushas." In modern Lithuanian, the word means "dawn".

The letters spelling out the name are also intended to invoke Australia (where the company originates), the U.S., and the ancient Egyptian sun god Ra.