Doug Davis

Doug Davis, a photo by Semester in the West on Flickr.

Doug Davis
Senior Environmental Compliance Manager, Ivanpah Project, Brightsource Energy
Near Primm, NV
November 9

Doug was born and raised in Las Vegas, Nevada, working his first long term job for 14 yrs at a dairy farm. Replacing cattle with heliostats, (reflective mirrors), Doug is now the project manager for the Ivanpah solar thermal power system. Located just across the Nevada-California border, the project neighbors the Ivanpah Dry Lake in California. The 370-megawatt system, designed to provide energy to 140,000 homes annually, has faced hurdles in its production due to the fact that the site is also home to critical desert tortoise habitat – an endangered species of the region. This has left the project to be, as Doug puts it, “challenging”. However, he qualifies, “If I didn’t believe in it, I wouldn’t do it.” Scheduled to be running by 2013, Ivanpah will be an environmental model for solar thermal technology.

By Ysa Diaz