The electrical energy it makes is dear, its know-how has been outdated, and it’s incinerating hundreds of birds mid-flight annually. The Trump administration desires to see this uncommon energy plant closed, and in a uncommon occasion of alignment, the Biden administration did, too.
However the state of California is insisting the Ivanpah energy plant within the Mojave Desert keep open for not less than 13 extra years. It’s a sign of simply how a lot electrical energy synthetic intelligence and knowledge facilities are demanding.
Ivanpah’s house owners, which embody NRG Vitality, Google and BrightSource, had agreed with their major buyer, Pacific Gasoline & Electrical, to finish their contract and largely shut Ivanpah. However final month, the California Public Utilities Fee unanimously rejected that settlement, citing considerations about reliability of the grid to ship electrical energy. The choice will successfully pressure two of Ivanpah’s three items to stay working relatively than shutting down this yr.
PG&E and the federal authorities had argued that closing would save ratepayers and taxpayers cash in contrast with paying for Ivanpah’s electrical energy till 2039, when the contract expires. However some consultants and stakeholders agreed with the state’s name, noting that the troubled energy plant continues to be offering electrical energy at a second when the state has little to spare.
“We’re seeing huge electrical energy demand, particularly from the good want for knowledge facilities, and we’re seeing grid reliability points, so all in all, I feel this was a clever transfer,” mentioned Dan Reicher, a senior scholar at Stanford. “Having mentioned that, I feel affordable individuals can differ on this one — it’s a more in-depth name.”
Ivanpah was the most important plant of its form on the planet when it opened to nice fanfare in 2014. The 386-megawatt facility makes use of an unlimited array of about 170,000 mirrors to pay attention daylight onto towers, creating warmth that spins generators to generate electrical energy. This is named photo voltaic thermal, as a result of it makes use of the warmth of the solar.
However the plant has been suffering from issues practically from the beginning. The mirror-and-tower know-how that after appeared so promising was outpaced by flat photovoltaic photo voltaic panels, which quickly proved cheaper and extra environment friendly and have become the business commonplace.
Ivanpah has no on-site battery storage, which suggests it primarily makes energy whereas the solar is shining, and it depends on pure gasoline to fireside up its boilers every morning.
The plant additionally developed a repute as a wildlife killer, with a 2016 report from The Instances discovering about 6,000 birds die annually after colliding with Ivanpah’s 40-story towers — or from prompt incineration after they fly into its concentrated beams of daylight.
Mirrors await the solar on opening day on the Ivanpah Photo voltaic Electrical Producing System within the Ivanpah Valley close to the California/Nevada border February 13, 2014.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Instances)
Regardless of these points, the CPUC decided the ability should keep on-line to assist the state meet “tight electrical energy circumstances” anticipated within the coming years, together with surging demand from knowledge facilities and synthetic intelligence, constructing and transportation electrification, and hydrogen manufacturing. Ivanpah qualifies as clear power and California has dedicated to 100% clear power by 2045.
The state’s most up-to-date Built-in Assets Plan, which appears forward at the way it will meet power wants, “would dictate that Ivanpah ought to stay on-line in gentle of the present uncertainty relating to reliability,” the CPUC wrote in its December decision.
The five-member choice got here regardless of PG&E’s assertion ratepayers will get monetary savings if it closes, a conclusion typically supported by an impartial assessment.
It additionally got here regardless of help for Ivanpah’s closure from each the Biden and Trump administrations, which hardly ever converge on the difficulty of power. Building of the $2.2-billion plant was backed by a $1.6-billion federal mortgage assure that has not but been absolutely repaid.
How a lot stays on that mortgage has not been made public, however an inner audit reviewed by The Instances signifies it might be as a lot as $780 million.
Within the last weeks of his time period, Biden’s Division of Vitality helped negotiate terminating the contract between PG&E and Ivanpah’s house owners. Trump’s Division of Vitality — which has been adversarial towards renewables corresponding to wind and photo voltaic — urged California to just accept that deal.
“Continued operation of the Ivanpah Initiatives just isn’t within the curiosity of California or its clients, neither is it within the curiosity of the US and its taxpayers,” Gregory Beard, a senior advisor with the Vitality Division’s Workplace of Vitality Dominance Financing, wrote in a Nov. 24 letter to the CPUC.
But the California company pointed to Trump’s insurance policies amongst its causes for maintaining Ivanpah open. Trump’s tariffs on metal and aluminum will enhance costs for brand new power applied sciences and will delay the enlargement of the nation’s power grid, the company mentioned. Trump additionally ended tax credit for photo voltaic, wind and different renewable power initiatives in a transfer that would cut back as much as 300 gigawatts of nationwide build-out by 2035, the CPUC mentioned.
In August, Trump’s Inside Division successfully halted wind and photo voltaic growth on federal land in favor of nuclear, gasoline and coal. That call might have an effect on Ivanpah, which sits on practically 3,500 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Administration close to the California-Nevada border.
These “shifting federal priorities” are creating uncertainty out there, the CPUC famous in its decision. California ratepayers have already paid in extra of $333 million for grid updates to help the Ivanpah challenge, and terminating its contracts “dangers stranding sunk infrastructure prices,” it mentioned.
The Ivanpah Photo voltaic Electrical Producing System concentrated photo voltaic thermal plant within the Mojave Desert in 2023.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Instances)
Stanford knowledgeable Reicher, who additionally served on the Vitality Division below the Clinton administration and as director of local weather change and power initiatives at Google, mentioned from an power perspective, the choice is sound.
“I lean towards maintaining it on-line, working it nicely and making enhancements, notably as we face an electrical energy scarcity the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years,” he mentioned.
Reicher famous that whereas concentrated photo voltaic has fallen out of favor within the U.S., it was seen as a beautiful funding on the time. Some locations are nonetheless constructing concentrated photo voltaic amenities, amongst them China, Mexico and Dubai, and it could possibly have some benefits over photovoltaics, he mentioned. For instance, many new concentrated photo voltaic amenities have a better capability issue, that means they will generate electrical energy extra hours of the yr.
Stakeholders corresponding to Pat Hogan, president of CMB Ivanpah Asset Holdings and an early investor within the plant, additionally applauded the CPUC choice. Whereas Ivanpah has by no means operated at its goal of 940,000 megawatt-hours of fresh power per yr, it’s nonetheless offering electrical energy, he mentioned. The plant produced about 726,000 MWh in 2024, the latest yr for which there are knowledge, in line with the California Vitality Fee.
“It doesn’t function on the optimum efficiency that was initially modeled, but it surely nonetheless generates electrical energy for 120,000 houses in California,” Hogan mentioned.
Hogan mentioned terminating the ability buy agreements would depart traders and taxpayers within the mud, benefiting the utility firm and the plant house owners. The plan would have transformed a “partially performing federal mortgage right into a near-total loss occasion,” he wrote in a formal criticism filed with the Vitality Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Common.
Others mentioned photo voltaic photovoltaic and battery storage are the perfect, most cost-effective solution to safe California’s power future. The state has invested closely in each, however Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and the CPUC ought to work to make sure extra are introduced on-line rapidly, mentioned Sean Gallagher, senior vice chairman of coverage on the Photo voltaic Vitality Industries Assn., a nationwide commerce group.
On the identical time, bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., ought to work to cease the federal photo voltaic slowdown, which has positioned an estimated 39% of California’s deliberate new capability for the following 5 years in “allowing limbo,” Gallagher mentioned.
“The CPUC’s choice highlights the precarious power place California is in, with electrical energy costs and electrical energy demand rising at traditionally quick charges,” he mentioned.
However Beard, of the Vitality Division, criticized the company choice as a “continuance of California’s dangerous insurance policies that drive up power payments.”
“California’s choice to maintain this uneconomic and dear useful resource open is dangerous for taxpayers and worse for ratepayers,” Beard mentioned in a press release to The Instances.
He declined to say whether or not the federal authorities plans to attraction the choice, however mentioned his workplace “has been working intently with the events concerned to make sure most reimbursement of U.S. taxpayer {dollars} whereas driving affordability via buyer financial savings.”
For its half, PG&E mentioned the corporate is now evaluating subsequent steps.
Hundreds of software-controlled heliostats focus the daylight on a boiler mounted on a collection of three towers on the Ivanpah energy plant in 2014.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Instances)
“Ending these agreements would have saved clients cash in comparison with the price of maintaining them for the rest of their phrases,” spokesperson Jennifer Robison mentioned in an e mail.
NRG spokesperson Erik Linden mentioned Ivanpah’s possession has continued to put money into the ability and “stays steadfast in its dedication to offering dependable renewable power to the state of California.” The present energy buy agreements stay in impact and the plant will function below their phrases at some point of the agreements, he mentioned.
It’s not the primary time California has delayed the retirement of an influence facility over considerations about system reliability. Final month, the California Coastal Fee struck a landmark cope with PG&E that can prolong the lifetime of the Diablo Canyon nuclear energy plant in San Luis Obispo till not less than 2030. It was initially slated to shut final yr.
