Federal taxpayers paid $2.2 billion for powerplant that actually makes electricity cost MORE
Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House still is costing Americans dollars, millions, even hundreds of millions of them.
As part of his “stimulus program,” federal taxpayers forked over for a $2.2 billion solar plant in California at that time.
But it underperforms, produces expensive electricity and has been left in the dust by cheaper energy sources. So much so that both Joe Biden and President Donald Trump administrations have tried to walk away to minimize losses.
But California regulators insist they will keep the Ivanpah Solar Power Plant.
A report from Fox News explains the result is a “costly standoff” with no good choice.
“Shutting it down could leave taxpayers responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars tied to a $1.6 billion federal loan, while keeping it open means higher electricity costs for consumers,” the report said.
“This project makes no economic sense to keep afloat, and the market itself has shown that,” charged Daniel Turner of Power The Future. “This is a boondoggle, like most of California’s large projects are a boondoggle.”
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The 4,000-acre project in the Mojave Desert has 350,000 mirrors mounted on heliostats and they reflect blinding sunlight into three towers.
But newer tech is now out there, and cheaper, and Ivanpah has triggered environmentalists who cite the thousands of birds killed after flying into the concentrated solar beams.
“Roughly $730 million to $780 million of the $1.6 billion federally backed loan tied to the project remains outstanding, according to federal data. In addition, the U.S. Department of the Treasury provided a $539 million grant to help build the facility, covering about 30% of construction costs,” the report said.
And analysts say while it’s running, it boosts electricity costs to customers by about $100 million a year.
Critics who all have wanted the project closed down include Trump, Biden and Pacific Gas &I Electric.
Blocking the logical advance is the California Public Utilities Commission, the report said.
It claims grid reliability is a concern.
Opened back in 2014, it was cutting edge, then.
Now, photovoltaic solar panels and battery storage are cheaper and more flexible, the report said.
“The technology used at Ivanpah is no longer really competitive with a new solar farm that uses conventional solar panels,” Severin Borenstein, an energy economist at the University of California, Berkeley, told Fox News Digital.
The report continued, “Ivanpah is not the first federally backed clean energy project to face scrutiny. Solar company Solyndra collapsed in 2011 after receiving $535 million in federal loan guarantees.”
And in a recent year, it operated at 17% capacity, well below the 25% or 30% range expected.