WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SOLAR DISH

What happened to Tessera Solar's projects? Just what was the reason behind the rapid-fire sale of Tessera Solar's two major CSP projects?
Jason Deign, 4 March 2011 (CSP Today)

"… In July 2010, Stirling Energy Systems (SES), a division of Irish renewable energy conglomerate NTR, picked up the CSP Today Best Commercialized Technological Innovation Award for its SunCatcher dish Stirling technology…[for] the 1.5 MW Maricopa plant in Arizona, built by another NTR business, Tessera Solar, and…the developer’s next two projects: Calico, scheduled to deliver 850 MW, and Imperial Valley, with 709 MW.

"Neither will now be completed by Tessera Solar. In December the Calico Solar Project was sold to K Road Power, which subsequently announced it would switch the development to PV, and AES Solar, another PV developer, bought Imperial Valley last month. So what went wrong?"

SunCatcher (click to enlarge)

"The official line is that Tessera Solar and SES had a run of bad luck with the markets…[but] it is also not inconceivable Tessera Solar may have made a couple of critical misjudgements…

"…Imperial Valley was issued an injunction at the request of the Quechan Indian tribe, which had sued the US Department of the Interior and Bureau of Land Management for insufficient consultation during the permitting process…[raising] questions over Tessera Solar’s choice of location for the project…[T]he company must have been aware its project location could be a sensitive issue…"

Probably SunCatcher's biggest problem is that there are more proven solar power plant technologies. (click to enlarge)

"And then there is the matter of the technology…[T]he Resources Agency of California…[described] a lack of information regarding the long-term performance…[and uncertainty] regarding reliability…This may have been a factor in SES’s failure to attract funding…Dish Stirling…[hasn’t] been deployed to scale…[and is] more in competition with PV, which is getting cheaper and is perfectly bankable…The fact that Calico and Imperial Valley are now both being developed as PV sites would seem to lend some weight to this argument…

"…But even that might not be the full story…One [anonymous] industry figure…[suggested] an existing investor [decided to divest holdings at below-market price] because of concerns over the technology…"