Ongoing Waste, Fraud and Collusion in the California Solar Industry
In 2012, I wrote a blog article about the “New Industrial Desert.” The article included mention of the Ivanpah Solar-Thermal Station (ISTS), then under construction in Ivanpah Valley, California. Backers touted the ISTS as the newest and most promising technology for large-scale solar energy production. Until commissioning of the ISTS, Israel’s small-scale demonstration plant was the only solar-thermal plant in the world.BrightSource Energy, Bechtel Corporation, Google (now Alphabet), and our
federal government invested $2.2 billion in what turned out to be the world’s largest bird fryer. Estimates are that over 6,000 birds annually fly into the solar flux generated at the ISTS, there to die instantly in flight. Because of the tiny smoke trails the dead birds make in the sky, plant workers call them “streamers.”Not only were desert bird species decimated by this “new technology,” but 3,500 acres of desert tortoise habitat fell to bulldozers as well. With battery storage and low-cost passive solar arrays just a few years away, it was a case of “birds and tortoises be damned.” At that time, Southern California Edison (SCE) and Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) were racing to “go green” with energy production. PG& E signed a fifteen-year contract to buy electrical production from Units One and Three. SCE contracted for power generated by Unit Two.
Not wanting to risk financial exposure, both Google’s $168 million investment and Bechtel’s undisclosed investment in Ivanpah garnered a $1.3 billion Department of Energy loan guarantee. In other words, you and I, the U.S. taxpayers will now pay for this incipient failure.Over the years, I authored several articles about the Ivanpah project on this blog. As a lifelong environmentalist, I was amazed at the reckless speed in which this half-baked idea materialized. I will not detail all my criticisms here, but a quick reading of my previous articles will update you.
Now, in March 2025, NRG Energy (which sounds redundant to me), is the current operator of the ISTS. Recently, it announced that Units One and Three would cease operation in 2026. Under an undisclosed agreement, PG&E will
terminate its power purchases before the end of its fifteen-year contract. SCE, for its part, continues to buy overpriced electrical power from Unit Two.In 2018, faulty SCE equipment caused Southern California’s Woolsey Fire, creating liability for property damage of $2.2 billion. As of this writing SCE transmission lines are under investigation for causing the January 2025 Eaton Fire. Is SCE whistling past the “graveyard of birds” known as Ivanpah? They are afraid to take a financial write-down on their ill-conceived purchase agreement with ISTS.
Even as Ivanpah became a financial and environmental disaster, the federal government continued promoting construction of passive “solar farms” throughout the Desert Southwest. In the Ivanpah/Primm Valley, the Stateline Solar Farm and the Silver State North/South projects have come online since 2016. The three projects combined, all within view of the ISTS, have a footprint similar in size to the failing solar-thermal plant.
To compare net energy production between the solar-thermal plant and its three passive solar neighbors is an exercise in frustration. Since the ISTS requires a gas-fired generator to get it started each morning, the net energy produced by the plant is far lower than the amount it supplies to the grid. Meanwhile, since the addition of 3,500 acres of passive solar near the ISTS, no other solar-thermal plant has materialized anywhere in the world. If BrightSource, Google, Bechtel, and the federal government had waited less than a decade, the ISTS would never have happened.In California, the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) continues to promote large scale “solar farms” throughout the Mojave Desert. This ongoing industrialization of the desert will require additional electrical transmission lines and further destruction of fragile habitat.
In 2023, the PUC ended “net metering”, which allowed rooftop solar owners to buy and sell electricity to the grid at market rates. Newer home connections buy at full price but sell excess power to the grid for a pittance. Now, the PUC has plans to scuttle net metering, even on older rooftop solar installations. To add contractual insult to financial injury, the PUC plans to allow utilities to charge all rooftop solar owners additional fees. These fees shall be for the honor of connecting to a costly, inefficient, and often dangerous electrical grid.To finance large-scale additions to the New Industrial Desert, investor-owned utilities, major corporations, and land developers will rely on those fees. As such, the unelected California PUC will continue their financial punishment of all homeowners who have installed rooftop solar.
After thirteen years studying the Ivanpah Solar-Thermal Station, here is my prediction for its future. The reflectors, towers, and their attendant infrastructure will all go to a desert landfill. In its place will arise 3,500 acres of passive solar arrays, providing electrical power to the grid. Next time someone tells you that they have a revolutionary way of producing New Energy, be skeptical of their assertions.
