BIG SUN’S REAL CHALLENGE

Solyndra: Solar sector’s storm in a teacup; Political backlash aside, the Solyndra bankruptcy isn’t likely to have a lasting impact on the solar energy sector, nor does it toll the death knell of support for CSP…
Dan McCue, 22 September 2011 (CSP Today)

"Solyndra, a Silicon Valley-based solar company promoting an innovative, rolled-tube technology, has cost US taxpayers US$535 million in federally guaranteed loans and exposed the Obama administration to unrelenting criticism from Republicans in the US House of Representatives…

"Solyndra was supposed to have been the poster child for clean-energy job creation…Then came the collapse and a subsequent investigation…[and] the media’s frenzy over the case…[but] the blow up of a loan to a technology-specific manufacturer…[does not mean failure of] project related investment…"

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"CSP is under a lot of pressure from competing technologies…[There is] little interest right now in buying electricity in 250 MW and 500 MW chucks, when there’s the option…[of] acquiring the same amount of capacity from a portfolio of smaller PV projects…

"…[But] the US has got quite a few CSP projects already in the works, including a 400 MW project by Brightsource, two 250 MW projects by Abengora, a 250 MW project by NextEra, and a 110 MW molten salt storage power tower by SolarReserve…The bigger problem for CSP…[is] that it hasn’t been able to reduce costs quite as rapidly as PV…"