The electrical energy it makes is pricey, its know-how has been outdated, and it’s incinerating hundreds of birds mid-flight annually.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 no less than 13 extra years. It’s a sign of simply how a lot electrical energy synthetic intelligence and information facilities are demanding.
Ivanpah’s house owners, which embrace NRG Power, Google and BrightSource, had agreed with their predominant 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 drive two of Ivanpah’s three models to stay operating slightly than shutting down this 12 months.
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 specialists 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 large electrical energy demand, particularly from the nice want for information facilities, and we’re seeing grid reliability points, so all in all, I feel this was a smart transfer,” stated Dan Reicher, a senior scholar at Stanford. “Having stated that, I feel cheap individuals can differ on this one — it’s a better name.”
Ivanpah was the biggest plant of its sort on this planet when it opened to nice fanfare in 2014. The 386-megawatt facility makes use of an enormous array of about 170,000 mirrors to pay attention daylight onto towers, creating warmth that spins generators to generate electrical energy. This is called photo voltaic thermal, as a result of it makes use of the warmth of the solar.
However the plant has been tormented by issues almost 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 trade commonplace.
Ivanpah has no on-site battery storage, which implies it primarily makes energy whereas the solar is shining, and it depends on pure fuel to fireside up its boilers every morning.
The plant additionally developed a status as a wildlife killer, with a 2016 report from The Occasions discovering about 6,000 birds die annually after colliding with Ivanpah’s 40-story towers — or from immediate incineration once 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 Occasions)
Regardless of these points, the CPUC decided the ability should keep on-line to assist the state meet “tight electrical energy situations” anticipated within the coming years, together with surging demand from information 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 Sources Plan, which seems to be forward at the way it will meet power wants, “would dictate that Ivanpah ought to stay on-line in mild of the present uncertainty relating to reliability,” the CPUC wrote in its December decision.
The five-member resolution got here regardless of PG&E’s assertion ratepayers will get monetary savings if it closes, a conclusion usually supported by an unbiased evaluate.
It additionally got here regardless of assist for Ivanpah’s closure from each the Biden and Trump administrations, which not often converge on the problem of power. Development 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 inside audit reviewed by The Occasions signifies it might be as a lot as $780 million.
Within the remaining weeks of his time period, Biden’s Division of Power helped negotiate terminating the contract between PG&E and Ivanpah’s house owners. Trump’s Division of Power — which has been adversarial towards renewables comparable to wind and photo voltaic — urged California to simply accept that deal.
“Continued operation of the Ivanpah Tasks is just not within the curiosity of California or its clients, neither is it within the curiosity of america and its taxpayers,” Gregory Beard, a senior advisor with the Power Division’s Workplace of Power 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 retaining Ivanpah open. Trump’s tariffs on metal and aluminum will improve costs for brand spanking new power applied sciences and will delay the enlargement of the nation’s power grid, the company stated. Trump additionally ended tax credit for photo voltaic, wind and different renewable power tasks in a transfer that might scale back as much as 300 gigawatts of nationwide build-out by 2035, the CPUC stated.
In August, Trump’s Inside Division successfully halted wind and photo voltaic growth on federal land in favor of nuclear, fuel and coal. That call may have an effect on Ivanpah, which sits on almost 3,500 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Administration close to the California-Nevada border.
These “shifting federal priorities” are creating uncertainty available in the market, the CPUC famous in its decision. California ratepayers have already paid in extra of $333 million for grid updates to assist the Ivanpah undertaking, and terminating its contracts “dangers stranding sunk infrastructure prices,” it stated.
The Ivanpah Photo voltaic Electrical Producing System concentrated photo voltaic thermal plant within the Mojave Desert in 2023.
(Brian van der Brug/Los Angeles Occasions)
Stanford professional Reicher, who additionally served on the Power Division beneath the Clinton administration and as director of local weather change and power initiatives at Google, stated from an power perspective, the choice is sound.
“I lean towards retaining it on-line, operating it effectively and making enhancements, significantly as we face an electrical energy scarcity the likes of which we haven’t seen in many years,” he stated.
Reicher famous that whereas concentrated photo voltaic has fallen out of favor within the U.S., it was seen as a lovely funding on the time. Some locations are nonetheless constructing concentrated photo voltaic amenities, amongst them China, Mexico and Dubai, and it might probably have some benefits over photovoltaics, he stated. For instance, many new concentrated photo voltaic amenities have a better capability issue, which means they’ll generate electrical energy extra hours of the 12 months.
Stakeholders comparable to Pat Hogan, president of CMB Ivanpah Asset Holdings and an early investor within the plant, additionally applauded the CPUC resolution. Whereas Ivanpah has by no means operated at its goal of 940,000 megawatt-hours of unpolluted power per 12 months, it’s nonetheless offering electrical energy, he stated. The plant produced about 726,000 MWh in 2024, the latest 12 months for which there are information, in accordance with the California Power Fee.
“It doesn’t function on the optimum efficiency that was initially modeled, however it nonetheless generates electrical energy for 120,000 houses in California,” Hogan stated.
Hogan stated terminating the facility buy agreements would go away 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 Power Division’s Workplace of the Inspector Basic.
Others stated photo voltaic photovoltaic and battery storage are the most effective, 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 shortly, stated Sean Gallagher, senior vp of coverage on the Photo voltaic Power Industries Assn., a nationwide commerce group.
On the similar 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 stated.
“The CPUC’s resolution highlights the precarious power place California is in, with electrical energy costs and electrical energy demand rising at traditionally quick charges,” he stated.
However Beard, of the Power Division, criticized the company resolution as a “continuance of California’s unhealthy insurance policies that drive up power payments.”
“California’s resolution to maintain this uneconomic and expensive useful resource open is unhealthy for taxpayers and worse for ratepayers,” Beard stated in a press release to The Occasions.
He declined to say whether or not the federal authorities plans to enchantment the choice, however stated his workplace “has been working intently with the events concerned to make sure most reimbursement of U.S. taxpayer {dollars} whereas driving affordability by buyer financial savings.”
For its half, PG&E stated the corporate is now evaluating subsequent steps.
1000’s of software-controlled heliostats focus the daylight on a boiler mounted on a sequence of three towers on the Ivanpah energy plant in 2014.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Occasions)
“Ending these agreements would have saved clients cash in comparison with the price of retaining them for the rest of their phrases,” spokesperson Jennifer Robison stated in an e mail.
NRG spokesperson Erik Linden stated Ivanpah’s possession has continued to spend money on the ability and “stays steadfast in its dedication to offering dependable renewable power to the state of California.” The prevailing energy buy agreements stay in impact and the plant will function beneath their phrases at some point of the agreements, he stated.
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 may prolong the lifetime of the Diablo Canyon nuclear energy plant in San Luis Obispo till no less than 2030. It was initially slated to shut final 12 months.
