The Failure of America's $1 Billion Solar Farm

The Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project was proposed back in 2011, and intended on meeting Nevada's rising demand for electricity to power 75,000 homes throughout the state. While the project was funded by the US Department of Energy and completed in 2015, it faced a number of challenges in the years afterward. This was mainly because of the new form of Solar Technology it was using, which was the first of its kind in the United States.

This new technology would ultimately lead the the failure of this $1 Billion dollar facility, which went bankrupt in 2020. But even as the future of this project looked uncertain, The US Buereu of Reclamation stated that the project had resumed full operation in July of 2021, due to increased demand for electricity throughout the state. Today, the future of this project is still uncertain, but has resumed operation for the state of Nevada.

Music by Tom Fox
Maps made with Geolayers 3

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[saw]

I grew up near a nuclear power plant that was built in the ‘60s came online in 1973 and is still on line 50 years later. It puts out enough electricity to power 1 million homes and takes up only 2 sq miles which includes a fish farm that raises and realeses native fish into the Mississippi River.

I wonder how much wild life habitat that huge solar farm ruins? How many birds get killed by the reflected sunlight? Because 75, 000 homes ain’t shit compared to 1, 000, 000 homes from a 50 year old reactor.

[jeromebarry]

Saying the "Engineers did not account for temperature" simply means that no engineers were employed in this project.

[Lambert]

the whole idea of implementing a huge new project without first having a small pilot project that proves out the design successfully, is just pretty much beyond belief, running counter to experience and wisdom in manifesting new ideas into reality - yes?

[MrSuzuki]

I was an airline pilot before my retirement in 2015 and I recall often flying by this facility and another one south of Las Vegas. Flying westbound to SFO or LAX at high altitude, those stupid mirrors would blind us during daylight hours. We had to physically force our eyes away from the glaring light as looking at them hurt and left our vision impaired for several minutes. Very intense light!!

[ThomasistheTwin]

700M dollars to power 75K homes? Just put 10K dollars worth of solar panels on each home and call it good.

[oceanmariner]

Australia has a similar project. The mirrors have to be constantly cleaned, along with the mechanical problems. It cost more to run and maintain the project than the revenue from the electricity produced.

[dollarmn]

So, they received a 400 million dollar loan from the taxpayers of our country NOT the Department of Energy. Just wanted to clarify that point.

[murphysdad]

I have a sister who worked at a Top 500 company. The company installed a solar farm on the campus. It was so hot for months you were unable to sit outside for breaks. A question I have asked with no response, What is the change in ambient temperature around a solar farm vs what the temperature was prior to the installation.
Also, why is no one addressing the number of birds incinerated as they get close to the panels.

[itchylol]

It failed because the NCR didn't realize that Fantastic only had a theoretical degree in physics, rather than a degree in theoretical physics

[HGuard]

But if it's still costs three to four times as much as traditional solar, that's no way to go.

[bruceferguson]

They’re building these in Ohio near Mt. Sterling. Fields are being bought up, not for agriculture but for solar farms. The locals are outraged because they won’t benefit from it. The power is going out of state. Ohio has less than 100 days of full sun, most are partly sunny or cloudy.

[markchristensen]

While the Tonopah facility was being bult, there was a big rain storm, in may, fiber optic cable had just been delivered. The fiber was under water, and ruined. Plus the plans called for 2 elevators, to save on costs, they put only one elevator. The elevators were for stability, so the tower now leans. I was in goldfild 4 years ago, i saw the most beautiful coat of hair. It got my attention, as most times they had been mangy, looking. That same day i was in the, Tonopah dump. Inundated by flies. There should have been zero flies, it was 38°. I asked myself why? Didn't take long i found the answer, dead birds were on the ground. Its a migratory fly way. The panels have been left to face upwards. The birds thinking its water fly towards it and become blinded, falling to the ground, dead.

[timsmith]

The promise was to provide electricity for 75, 000 homes. Is it doing that now? Since you failed to mention, I'll assume not. This project is another example of how taxpayers get robbed to pay for politicians' pet projects.

[timsmith]

"While the technical flaws were a key cause of its major challenges, the financial state of the company was ultimately the key cause behind the project's failure." But the financial state of the company was directly due to their inability to reliably produce competitively-priced electricity because of the technical flaws.

[stevelynch]

You can tell by the video that many of the panels are broken or not functioning at all, the maintenance on these panels must be incredible

[AWildBard]

I used to see a place in the California desert that had mirrors focused on a central location. That was probably in the 80's and 90's.
So there must have already been at least one place where this technology had already existed.

[ljhere]

Money would have been better spent on nuclear energy.

[Elger]

The primary question really is who were the principals and how were they connected to key politicians.

[Ukepa]

hard to believe this is really competitive. what incredible complication, initial cost and maintenance cost!

[bobjackson]

It must be a fun job keeping 10, 000 mirrors clean. I wonder if sanity will ever return to power generation?