$2.2B solar plant in California turned off after years of wasted money

[toomuchtodo]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Power_Facility

https://www.gem.wiki/Ivanpah_Solar_Electric_Generating_Syste...

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

(solar PV prices declined far faster than expected; combined with concentrated solar thermal operational challenges, it led to the plant being uneconomical; could potentially be re-powered as solar PV)

[ZeroGravitas]

Concentrated solar is still coming down in price and being built in China and its ability to store the energy until dusk made it a good choice anywhere that had bright sunshine even after PV got cheap.

At least until batteries got cheap too.

Now it's super niche.

Also, some quick calculations based on the average yearly generation and estimated PPA suggests that it generated electricity worth roughly the same amount as the big scary number in the headline.

Presumably the PPA was set up pay for the construction plus profit over some timescale. Paying it off after 10 years isn't great but it's not bad either.

[sema4hacker]

The Wikipedia article says: "The plant burns natural gas each morning to commence operation... In 2014, the plant burned 868×109 British thermal units (254 GWh) of natural gas emitting 46,084 metric tons of carbon dioxide...".

I never knew until today that solar plants require fossil fuels.

[toomuchtodo]

Only solar thermal plants, solar PV plants do not require fossil generation for keeping an energy transfer medium hot, boilers, etc.

[anigbrowl]

Surely you can find a better source than the tabloid rag NY Post

[toomuchtodo]

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45364796

[throwmeaway222]

It's merely conservative - the tabloid side of it has moved to pagesix.

[throwmeaway222]

This and high speed rail should have been money towards nuclear. We're going to be fucked in 2035 when the EV mandate goes into effect. They can't even keep the power on right now.