eSolar's shine carries through into 2010

SolidWorks customer eSolar is probably one of the only companies that can say “we had a great 2009” without an accompanying eye roll to underscore the irony. But when most of the country was marinating in red ink, eSolar opened a first-of-its-kind solar plant in California and capped the year with recognition from a top engineering publication and an international economic and social development organization.

Power Engineering magazine named eSolar’s Sierra SunTower facility winner of the “Best Renewable and Sustainable Project” and the World Economic Forum – host of the prestigious Davos Forum – named eSolar a 2010 Technology Pioneer. And carrying its momentum from 2009 into 2010, eSolar announced that a Chinese company is licensing its technology in a 10-year deal to produce two gigawatts of power.

Sierra SunTower is the kind of solar plant that will pull the industry out of the “science project” box. It is a utility-scale thermal power plant that uses arrays of “heliostatic” mirrors to focus sunlight on a collector that pipes steam to an electric turbine. eSolar used SolidWorks software to design the heliostatic mirror arrays.

We wrote about eSolar in August, and there are updates about the two awards on the company’s news release site. 

Mike McGrail is a writer at public relations firm Beaupre, and spends a lot of time talking to SolidWorks customers. He'll be contributing from time to time with interesting stories and updates from SolidWorks customers around the world.