What was once one of the largest investments in energy production is now considered a complete failure

Once seen as a safe and innovative treasure in energy production, one of the greatest investments ever, it is now seen as the biggest fiasco in the history of renewable energy in the US. Find out the details of this story in this article!

The Crescent Dunes solar power plant is now considered a failure, in light of what were the initial expectations.

lmost 10 years ago the world heard about one of the largest thermoelectric investments in history: the Crescent Dunes solar power plant, near Tonopah, in the North American state of Nevada. Almost a decade later it is considered a fiasco.

Built by SolarReserve and inaugurated in 2015, this was one of the first commercial facilities to use molten salt-based thermal energy storage technology. The plant uses a field of 10,347 heliostats (mirrors) that concentrate sunlight in a central tower, generating a total power of 110 MW.

This was, in fact, the second solar thermal power plant with molten salt storage, after the Spanish Gemasolar, having been built on a scale six times larger, with the intention of storing up to 1.1 GWh of energy and offering a flexible supply of electricity to 100,000 people.

Unfortunately, this megalomaniac project never fulfilled its promise, becoming a huge multimillionaire waste. One billion dollars was how much the SolarReserve project cost, financed by investors such as Warren Buffet or Citigroup, with loans guaranteed by the government of the United States of America.

Although the technology was promising, the plant faced several challenges, both technical and economic. In 2019 it ended up closing its operations due to problems in the molten salt storage system and lack of funding.

Still in project, the construction and operation of the plant will raise concerns about the environmental impact, especially on local fauna and flora. The factory had to deal with environmental regulations and licenses. Solar thermal power plants can affect birds and other animals due to the high intensity of light and heat they generate.

The arid areas of the globe are very appetiable for the production of solar energy due to their various competitive advantages.

Identified problems made the operation unfeasible

After the plant was built, several problems related to breaks and difficulties in handling salts at high temperatures were found. Concerns about the heliostat system were also reported. The calibration and maintenance of these mirrors turned out to be more complex and expensive than ever expected.

Performance in power generation has been lower than expected. The factory failed to consistently reach the planned production capacity during its design phase. Consequently, it had to face interruptions in its operation, which affected its capacity for continuous energy generation.

The factory has therefore revealed serious problems to generate the expected income, seriously affecting the return on investment. Crescent Dunes faced dramatic difficulties that ended in 2019 with NV Energy, the Nevada electricity company, suing SolarReserve for violating the contract to supply 100% of the energy it generated for 25 years.

Crescent Dunes investors gave up the project and also sued SolarReserve for poor capital management. Crescent Dunes was declared bankrupt the following year, confirming what had been brewing since its inauguration: the biggest fiasco in the history of renewable energy in the United States of America.

Spanish company involved in the case

After abandoning the project, Bill Gould, co-founder of SolarReserve, blamed the Spanish company ACS Cobra, co-owner and responsible for the plant's engineering, for the failure, accusing it of designing a defective storage tank.

Despite the accusations, SolarReserve did not take legal action against the Spanish company, a former subsidiary of Banco Santander and the ACS Group led by Florentino Pérez, also president of Real Madrid CF. The salt tank in Crescent Dunes had flaws because it was considered too large. Large temperature differences result in greater expansion, which generates greater compression forces and in very large diameters, the probability of failure due to cyclic loading is multiplied.

In 2021, after the suspension of debt, the plant continues to operate alongside ACS, which signed a new contract with NV Energy, although it generates energy at a price that is too high in the face of all expectations.