Despite a brutal macro environment that has made it extremely difficult for nearly any new power generation project (renewable or non-renewable) to get funding, some renewable energy and infrastructure projects are still managing to initiate development.

As I mentioned on Wednesday, ITC Holdings (NYSE:ITC) filed the paperwork earlier this week for a massive transmission project capable of moving 12,000 MW of energy over about 3,000 miles of extra high-voltage transmission. This project will enable a number of new wind developments in the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Iowa to send their juice to Midwestern cities.

And yesterday, Southern California Edison announced that it was signing a series of contracts with BrightSource Energy for the supply of 1,300 MW of solar thermal power generation.

You see, in California, there is a state mandate that requires utilities to produce 20 percent of their power from renewables by 2010. Many believe the utilities will not be able to meet this goal by 2010. And they could be right. After all, Southern California Edison now buys more renewable power than any other utility, yet renewables only make up 16 percent of its delivered power.

Still, 16 percent is nothing to shrug off, as it proves that an aggressive move to secure cleaner, and more economically sustainable power generation is entirely possible, and disproves the defeatist belief that renewables can never contribute a significant amount of power to our grid.

Certainly that's what Google, BP, Chevron, Statoil, and Vantage Point seem to believe, as all are major backers of BrightSource Energy.

The 1,300 MW will be coming from seven different projects that BrightSource will build and place in commercial operation. When completed, the seven projects will provide power for about 845,000 households during peak-demand hours.

Jeff