History

BSII has been pioneering solar thermal energy for nearly three decades.  The BSII team has its origins in Luz International Ltd. (“Luz”).  The Luz team revolutionized the power world by proving that solar energy could reliably produce commercially competitive electricity during the heavy use, peak load, day time hours. Between 1984 and 1991, Luz designed, developed, built, financed, and operated nine Solar Electricity Generating Stations (SEGS) in California’s Mojave Desert generating a total of 354 megawatts.

The Luz plants have generated more than 11,000 gigawatt-hours and produced more than 1.7 billion dollars of revenue over the past 22 years. These plants are still generating electricity to the Southern California Edison grid and operating profitably. No other company has come close to the Luz solar thermal industry track record.

The original Luz projects were based on solar thermal parabolic trough technology, which focused sunlight on a pipe carrying synthetic oil. Since that time, LUZ II has advanced solar thermal technology by developing a new, proprietary design based on Luz Power Towers (LPTs), which increases solar-to-thermal conversion efficiency from about 36% (for the older parabolic trough technology) to above 40%. At the same time, the new design significantly reduces overall equipment and project costs.

LUZ II was founded by Mr. Arnold Goldman, who was also the founder of the original Luz. The company employs the key engineering and business development personnel who were central to the success of the original Luz projects. They have been joined by a group of talented young people—engineers, scientists, administrative and financial professionals.

In 2006, LUZ II joined a world-class finance and development team and became a wholly-owned subsidiary of BrightSource Energy.  In December 2008, Luz II changed its name to BrightSource Industries (Israel), Ltd. (BSII).