Dive Brief:
- In the first eight months of 2014 the Ivanpah solar facility in California generated 254,263 MWh of electricity—about 25% of the total output that the facility's owners had expected, Breaking Energy reports.
- Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows the plant's production was much stronger in the summer, sunnier months but still fell far below targets. From May to August production hit almost 190,000 MWh.
- One of the plant's owners, BrightSource Energy, pointed to less sun than had been anticipated and the large scale of the facility as reasons for a slow startup. Ivanpah came online at the end of 2013.
Dive Insight:
Breaking Energy reports that NRG Energy, the facility operator, is fairly tight-lipped about issues at Ivanpah, but BrightSource said that "there have been some equipment challenges which impacted plant availability, although we have seen a consistent improvement in performance since the plant went on-line earlier this year."
BrightSource said that in July, when production fell to about 36,000 MWh after generating 64,000 MWh the month before, a lack of sunshine was to blame.
“Since the early planning stages of this one-of-a-kind project, we knew there might be some growing pains along the way, but through continued learnings and our ongoing improvement process, the units are performing better than some of our initial assumptions," the company told Breaking Energy.
The 392-MW facility is also part-owned by Google.
