Gigantic and famous Ivanpah solar plant in Mojave Desert appears headed for closure 11 years after opening

Good news! How competitive is solar power without substantial government subsidies and forced quotas to buy power?

"... Earlier this month, Pacific Gas & Electric said it is ending its contract with the Ivanpah solar power plant, which launched in 2014 using concentrated solar. ..."

"It was the future. It would demonstrate how to save the planet. It would produce electricity clean and cheap and immune to the vagaries of international shifts in prices, interest rates, currency exchange values, and the caprice of foreign governments. It was a demonstration of the massive achievements possible from public/private “partnerships,” that is, central planning American style. ...

And now, despite all the subventions, it is shutting down about 15 years early as a monument to green fantasies financed with Other People’s Money, inflicted upon electricity ratepayers in California denied options to escape the madness engendered by “climate” hysteria supported by no actual evidence.

Ivanpah sits on 3471 acres of the Mojave Desert, with 347,000 mirrors controlled by computers, delivering concentrated sunlight into three towers. When fully operational, it was supposed to generate about 1 million megawatt-hours of power annually; for 2015–2023, actual annual output has averaged 702,322 MWh.

This poor performance has obtained despite a $1.6 billion loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, for which the plant owners did not have to pay even the usual credit subsidy cost (the expected default liability for the federal government), under the DoE section 1705 loan program. The plant owners then applied for and received a grant of $535 million from the Treasury Department under the section 1603 program to pay back part of the loan already guaranteed at no charge by the DoE. There also was the 30 percent investment tax credit, the accelerated depreciation (an assumed plant life of five years), and a depreciation bonus of 50 percent in the first year. And there is the guaranteed market share for wind and solar power—the “renewable portfolio standard”—which meant that the major California utilities were forced to buy the power produced by Ivanpah. (Pacific Gas & Electric buys the power from towers 1 and 3, while Southern California Edison buys the power from tower 2.) ..."

Large solar plant in Mojave Desert appears headed for closure 11 years after opening | Just The News "According to ABC News, the plant has been struggling to stay competitive against cheaper solar technologies on the market."

The Ivanpah Solar Power Monstrosity Bites the Taxpayers. Again.