Solar Energy Company Requests a Bailout to Pay Federal Loan

By Filed under Energy, Federal Government on November 12, 2014 with 4 comments

Typical of Obama administration supported renewable energy projects, yet another one is failing. Back in 2010, President Obama said that Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System would put 1,000 people to work and power up to 140,000 homes. However since last February, Ivanpah has been only producing one-fourth the amount of energy that was predicted. The excuse for this is that there have been fewer sunny days than were predicted.

Some basic facts about Ivanpah Solar System:

  • Owned by NRG Energy, Google and BrightSource Energy.
  • Used a $1.6 billion federal loan to help build the solar plant.
  • Now is requesting a $539 million federal grant to help pay off part of the federal loan.
  • Federal grant would help pay to pay off federal loan of a failing business.

The Obama administration pushed numerous renewable energy projects with high risk and at the cost of the American taxpayers.

Evergreen Solar ($25 million)  SpectraWatt ($500,000)   Solyndra ($535 million)   Beacon Power ($43 million)   Nevada Geothermal ($98.5 million)   SunPower ($1.2 billion)   First Solar ($1.46 billion)   Babcock and Brown ($178 million)   EnerDel’s subsidiary Ener1 ($118.5 million)   Amonix ($5.9 million)   Fisker Automotive ($529 million)   Abound Solar ($400 million)   A123 Systems ($279 million)   Willard and Kelsey Solar Group ($700,981)    Johnson Controls ($299 million)   Schneider Electric ($86 million)   Brightsource ($1.6 billion)   ECOtality ($126.2 million)   Raser Technologies ($33 million)   Energy Conversion Devices ($13.3 million)   Mountain Plaza, Inc. ($2 million)   Olsen’s Crop Service and Olsen’s Mills Acquisition Company ($10 million)   Range Fuels ($80 million)   Thompson River Power ($6.5 million)   Stirling Energy Systems ($7 million)   Azure Dynamics ($5.4 million)   GreenVolts ($500,000)   Vestas ($50 million)   LG Chem’s subsidiary Compact Power ($151 million)   Nordic Windpower ($16 million)   Navistar ($39 million)   Satcon ($3 million)   Konarka Technologies Inc. ($20 million)   Mascoma Corp. ($100 million)

Reckless investments such as these should be reserved for individual/private investors. Taxpayers cannot afford to throw any more money away.

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Comments (4)

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  1. Fred says:
    November 12, 2014 at 4:34 pm

    It sounds like the problem was technology, this plant relying on turbines instead of PV.

  2. Jake Sanders says:
    November 12, 2014 at 5:53 pm

    Solar energy, “the next big thing” since 1950

  3. CRS says:
    November 13, 2014 at 9:40 am

    What Jack said +1.

  4. Santiago says:
    November 18, 2014 at 2:19 pm

    Agreed, solar has yet to live up to people’s hopes.

    Honestly, if this is all for the sake of a cleaner environment, there are much more stable and meaningful investments the government can make. Namely, improving the efficiency of vehicles, machines, plants, etc. that use oil/gas/coal. Helping make more efficient capital be more available in the market.

    Perhaps the government would be more successful if it would facilitate business sectors, rather than trying to create them in areas which inputs and/or outputs are scarce.