Theoretical results on spatial optical bright solitons excited in arrays of nonlinear defocusing waveguides, that result from the photovoltaic effect in a photorefractive material, are presented. The existence of four types of stationary discrete bright staggered solitons, on-site, inter-site, twisted inter-site, and twisted on-site solitons, is shown both analytically and numerically, and their stability properties are investigated. The maximum Hamiltonian of staggered solitons with the same total power corresponds to stable modes. It is shown that for low total power the on-site mode is stable while in the high power regime the inter-site mode is stable. These results are confirmed numerically. In addition, steering properties of localized modes are investigated by introducing a transversal translational shift. Because of the translational symmetry between on-site and inter-site localized modes they are considered as two dynamical realizations of the same moving mode, and the formalism of the Peierls-Nabarro effective potential is applied to interpret the exchange between trapping and steering of these modes. This critically depends on the mode's total power and the introduced phase difference. On the other hand, steering of twisted inter-site and on-site localized modes is not numerically observed. Instead, transversal perturbation leads to a transformation of twisted modes either into a trapped on-site mode of smaller power and radiation, or into two trapped on-site modes. © EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2005.